


Binary Star

by esama



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Domestic, Family, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Out of Character, Psychological Trauma, Self-cest, Sexual Content, Soul Bond, Time Travel, Torture, yep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-02 07:34:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12722319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: In which a Master Kenobi and a General Kenobi emerge to replace a dying Knight Kenobi.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Red_Hot_Holly_Berries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Hot_Holly_Berries/gifts).



> Unbetaed

"You know there are times when I think Jedi have the right of it after all," the Sith muses, watching idly as Anakin struggles against his chains while Obi-Wan gasps for a breath on the wall he's been hung, spread eagle, by binds around his wrists and ankles. "Taking in children as young as you do, I mean. Your system of indoctrination, somewhat odious though it seems like, has its benefits."

"You monster – let us go!" Anakin wails as he almost falls over, the chains keeping him stuck mere meter off the further wall and unable to get any closer. Still he tries to get closer, tries to struggle forward, his boots scraping against the smooth stone floor helplessly. "Obi-Wan!"

"Anakin, don't look," Obi-Wan gasps. "Don't look."

The dark cloaked figure ignores them both, eying Obi-Wan consideringly. "We Sith, we only take suitable students, you see, _adult_ students with the right… temperament," he says almost conversationally, nonchalantly, as if Obi-Wan's blood isn't dripping on the floor. "It's such an odious task, to raise a child, wait them to get to the proper age, hope they develop the right emotional range… when there is a galaxy out there full of _quadrillions of people_ , quite a number of them force sensitive, and positively _brimming_ with passion. Why wait when all you have to do is pick and choose."

The Sith takes a few steps, ignoring the sounds of Anakin struggles, and Obi-Wan's pained breaths. "But one can't deny that your system does bring results. Thousands of Jedi, all fitted into the same perfect mold, all but mind controlled," the Sith shakes his head, almost impressed. "It is remarkable, how no one _minds_ it in the slightest. You steal children, program them to think just as you do, feel as you do, behave just as you do, and in the end produce a perfect carbon copy of all the Jedi that came before with minimal variation to your ancient traditions. Rather like a retrovirus, you duplicate your Order by taking over host bodies and converting them to your ways. It really is very effective."

"That's not –" Obi-Wan starts to say and then his breath catches in convulsion as a current of _something_ courses through him.

"Obi-Wan!" Anakin screams as his Master's head is thrown back against the wall and he slumps down in his binds, panting for pained breath.

"The Jedi Order is little more than a cult," the Sith muses, as if he hadn't even noticed the torture taking place, as if he hadn't _instigated_ it. "You go around, do whatever you want, you're justified in doing so because, of course, you're _Jedi._ How many of your Acquisitions department deploy mind tricks to get unwilling parents to part away with their force sensitive children, hm? How many complaints do you get after from other family members, which are then settled with suitable sum of credits and possibly _more_ mind tricks to quell any objections? How many children do you intentionally orphan with no care for their families? Without any care of their… mothers?"

The Sith stops there and turns to Anakin, smiling under the hood of his cloak while Anakin's desperate scrabbling stops, hesitates just for a moment, as he thinks of his own mother – still a slave in Tatooine.

"Do you know the monetary worth of a Jedi, young Anakin?" the Sith asks with a widening, sharpening smile. "How much a captured, Force bound Jedi is worth on the slave market? Hutts pay hundreds of _thousands_ of credits just for a untrained but confirmed Force Sensitive, you know – after all anyone can learn to use Force, all it takes is proper discipline and slave is easy to discipline. But a Jedi – how much would you pay for a _trained Jedi?_ "

Anakin struggles to his knees. "You're not selling us to slavery," he snarls.

"How much is a Jedi worth to the Galactic Republic, I wonder," the Sith says. "And how very little do their families matter in comparison."

Anakin bares his teeth and then looks at Obi-Wan, who lifts his head wearily and looks at him. "Calm," Obi-Wan mouths through bloodied lips and Anakin takes a breath and he tries, he really does, but he can feel Obi-Wan's pain in the Force, he can _See_ it, and this damn monster is goading him and –

There's a crack of terrible blue light and then Obi-Wan is thrown against the wall, screaming as the electricity arcs from the Sith's fingers and into Obi-Wan, tearing through the air with a terrible crackling sound and leaving it smelling like ozone.

"Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan!" Anakin screams, and it's barely loud enough to make over the noise.

"But oh there is a merit," the Sith breaths. "In taking in a child and rearing them just to your liking, isn't there? A susceptible child is so much easier to manipulate just to your liking. Like, for example," another crack of lightning, another cry from Obi-Wan and Anakin is _screaming_. "To make them _hate_ and _fear_ , it's so _easy_ –"

"Stop it! Obi-Wan! _Obi-Wan_!"

The Sith cackles with delight as the arching lightning stops, leaving the chamber almost dark, leaving Obi-Wan gasping wetly for breath. "Oh, I am enjoying this," the Sith mutters and reaches forward to pat the burnt chest of Obi-Wan's tunics. "Revenge is such a crude, meaningless distraction, there are so many more important things to do… but oh, it is sweet. You killed my student and now I get to kill you, and take _yours_. Fair trade, wouldn't you say?"

"Go to hell," Obi-Wan pants.

"In due time, I'm sure," the Sith laughs and turns away, to look at Anakin, as if to check he's paying attention. Anakin ignores him – he doesn't want to give the asshole the satisfaction – and instead keeps his eyes on Obi-Wan's sweaty, pallid face. He looks so hurt, so weak, so –

"Still," the Sith mutters and trails his hand down across the burns. "It is peculiar that a mere Jedi _Padawan_ could slay a trained Sith lord. Don't you find that peculiar, Kenobi?"

Obi-Wan draws a breath and then another, little steadier and glares at him without saying anything.

"Darth Maul was young, but he was _strong_ and I trained him well. Your pathetic old Master was far from the first Jedi he slew," the Sith says. "And hardly the strongest either. You, a pathetic little Padawan, oh so soft and agreeable and from what I can tell from your records, entirely _naive_ … you shouldn't have been able to put a scratch on him. Especially not from _that_ position."

Obi-Wan's eyes sharpen. "You've seen the recordings," he says and his eyes narrow. "How have you seen the recordings? How did _you_ get access to the Naboo Reactor Footage?"

The Sith grins, all teeth. "Now what makes you special, Kenobi?" he wonders and peers at Obi-Wan's face. "Did you feel… _angry_ at your Master's death, hm? Did it fill you with hate?"

"I am _not_ turning to the Dark Side," Obi-Wan growls.

"Oh, no, little Jedi, you're going to _die_ ," the Sith cackles and steps back, holding out his hands, aiming his fingers at Obi-Wan's chest again, to cast more lightning at him. "But before you do, you will tell me how a little pathetic weakling such as yourself could kill… a true _Sith lord_!"

There is no lightning though. Instead the wall behind Obi-Wan lights with blood red symbols and sigils, glowing with inner electricity and strange, flickering power. Anakin almost recoils from them, the _darkness_ now active and alive in them like a living thing, and Obi-Wan gasps and his body writhes as he tries to get away from the press of symbols at his back.

"Oh, do you like it?" the Sith asks excitedly. "Old Sith magic. It's not even _that terribly bad_ , all things considered. It's designed to bring forth the truth – something Jedi would appreciate, I'm sure. Now," he presses his hand forward in air, a force push, and the blood red symbols _thrum_ and _pulse_ with power. "Tell me the truth! Where did your power come from? How did you kill Maul?!"

Obi-Wan groans, his body arching while Anakin screams for him. It looks like it burns, it _feels_ like it burns – there is a terrible, oppressive heat coming off from the other end of the room and Anakin can even smell it, the stench of burning wool, burning hair. Obi-Wan's body convulses and then falls lax in the bonds as his strength gives in and for a moment he hangs there, panting in pain.

"Well" the Sith asks and waits. Obi-Wan is still conscious but all he is doing is panting for breath, each inhale a struggle, each exhale stuttering like he's trying to breathe around a blockade. "Tell me!" the Sith snarls and presses his hand forward again. Again the sigils burn and pulse and Obi-Wan moans at the feel of it.

"Stop it!" Anakin wails – he can see smoke now, the back of Obi-Wan's clothes is actually _burning_!

"What is your power? Where does it come from?!" the Sith demands, sounding furious and gleeful all at once. "Where did you get the strength to kill a Sith Lord? Tell me, Kenobi – what is your potential?!"

Obi-Wan makes a terrible noise and there's a sound Anakin can't immediately identify – Obi-Wan is arching away from the wall again, as much as his binds allow. A crack – followed by Obi-Wan's pained gasp.

Obi-Wan's wrist – he broke his own wrist.

The Sith laughs, delighted. "I think we hit on the right question now. Oh, you poor boy, you broke yourself," he cackles and before Obi-Wan can do more than draw a shuddering, aching breath, he's pushing with Force again. "What is your potential? Tell me, Kenobi. Tell me! _What is your potential_?!"

"Stop it!" Anakin screams, scrabbling against the chains again, trying to get loose, but they're bound up tight and he can't get away, he can't get any closer, he can't - "Let him go!"

The Sith only cackles louder, enjoying his screaming, Obi-Wan's groans of pain, the thrum of Dark side all around them. There's another terrible crack as Obi-Wan convulses, another point of pain and torment. Whatever the sigils are doing, it's worse than the lightning, worse than the current of electricity that runs through the binds – this is, this is _worse_ and it's almost literally twisting the life out of Obi-Wan.

"What is your potential?" the Sith laughs and then, as if just for the insidious fun of it, cracks out with a whip of lightning as well. It leaves a gash and a scorch mark on Obi-Wan's chest and Obi-Wan cries out. "What is your potential, Kenobi?"

" _LET HIM GO_!" Anakin roars, throwing everything he has at it, at his attempts of freeing himself, at the sound, trying to, to – he's not sure what he's trying to do, anything and everything all at once because there's blood pouring out of Obi-Wan's nose now, his ears, his arm is in wrong angle, he's hurting, he's dying, and Anakin has to get free, has to save him – " _LET HIM GO, LET HIM GO, LET HIM_ –"

"What do you have in your future, Kenobi?" the Sith asks, gleeful, and lashes out with lightning. "Show me!"

And something _breaks._

Anakin is thrown back suddenly against the wall at his back, his head impacting the wall hard as the chains dig into his back. His eyes are thrown wide open and he can see the Sith stumbling back and falling over while something _bursts_ out, a concussion wave of something that isn't quite air, isn't even sound. It's Force.

The terrible blood red sigils at Obi-Wan's back _exploded_. Or are exploding. Or maybe they are _sinking_ or vanishing – Anakin can't tell what's happening to it, but the thing seems to be collapsing into itself like a vacuum explosion, and it's expelling horrible amounts of Force as it does and Obi-Wan is –

"OBI-WAN!" Anakin shouts.

Obi-Wan falls – and is caught by something. For a moment it looks like he's just hanging in air, held by the Force itself, but no, it isn't that. There are hands under his arms, holding him up. There's a – a opening in the wall behind Obi-Wan, and there are people there, and they're supporting Obi-Wan's limp form.

"Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan! OBI-WAN!" Anakin shouts, now almost mindless in terror, as his Master just hangs there, loose and lifeless in the hands of strangers. A man in white armour with black gloved fingers gripping at Obi-Wan's burnt tunics and another man in dark brown cloak, bare handed as he catches Obi-Wan around the burn's chest before he can fall. Together, they hold Obi-Wan up while Anakin wails, "OBI-WAN!"

The Sith is scrambling to his feet now, black cloak swishing and whirling around as he turns to face the suddenly _blown up_ end of the chamber. For a moment he hesitates, Anakin only sees it in the corner of his eyes and he doesn't _care_ , but the Sith is hesitating, he's confused – he doesn't know what happened.

Then the Sith lashes out with his hand and lightning arches forward again – an _instant_ later, the man in white armour has stepped forward and ignited a lightsaber. The arching lightning meets the blinding column of light of a blue lightsaber blade and is caught on it, and over the sparking light Anakin can see the man's bearded face, his eyes intent, his face twisted with anger.

" _Palpatine_ ," the man growls, his voice… familiar.

"Oh?" the Sith asks, surprised – and then the armoured man is already dashing forward, swinging the lightsaber around to attack, and split of a second later he's at the Sith, all but wailing at him, _shouting_ in anger.

"What –" the cloaked figure asks and then quickly moves to catch Obi-Wan as he threatens to slip from his hold. As Anakin struggles against the chains and watches, helpless, the cloaked figure eases his Master down to the floor and then lifts his head to get at his neck to check his pulse – and stops to stare. "What?" he asks again and rests a hand on Obi-Wan's cheek, tilting his face to himself. "What is this?"

"Obi-Wan!" Anakin shouts, again, helpless and furious and desperate – and the cloaked figure looks up, surprised as he pushes his hood back.

In the meanwhile a lightsaber has met another, as the Sith has drawn his blade, red and terrible, and met it with the armoured man's blue blade. They crack together loudly in the confined space as the armoured man attacks and attacks and the Sith is left flailing, surprised and unprepared to face the sudden attack.

Anakin stares.

The cloaked figure has the same face as the armoured man, though different hair. Both are bearded much the same. They both have the same eyes.

They have his _Master's_ eyes.

"Anakin?" the cloaked man asks, confused, and then looks at Obi-Wan – and then up at the lightsaber duel taking place. "What is – what in Force's name –?"

Anakin has no idea what's going on anymore – but the armoured man is fighting the Sith and this man looks like his Master – they both do, really, and they came from behind, no, they came _from Obi-Wan_ – and the armoured man is fighting the Sith, so he can't be bad and - "He's a Sith!" Anakin shouts at the cloaked, bearded man. "He's a Sith and he captured us and he tortured Obi-Wan and was going to kill him and make me his apprentice!"

The bearded, long haired version of Obi-Wan looks at him and doesn't even hesitate to believe him. Only a blink later he's gently pushed Anakin's unconscious Master to rest against the wall and then he's thrown his own cloak off – then there's a lightsaber in his hand and he's rushing to the armoured man's aid.

Not that the armoured man seems to need much help. The crack of blades and wail of lightsabers tearing through air is loud as he tears into the Sith. The Sith has already been pushed back a bunch and is on the defensive, looking a weird mixture of worried and utterly delighted.

"Master Kenobi, I presume?" the Sith all but _leers_ at the man in armour.

"That's _General_ Kenobi to you," the armoured man answers with a growl and prepares for another attack.

"General Kenobi?" the no-longer-cloaked man asks as he steps to his side, blue plasma blade held in front. "Now how did _that_ happen?"

The _General_ doesn't answer, glancing at him only for a moment before nailing his eyes on the Sith again. The other man keeps his eyes on the threat too, though he seems lot more confused about the events than his armoured counterpart.

"You know who I am, _General_?" the Sith asks and cackles. "Then you know you can't possibly kill me. Imagine the _fallout_ of a Jedi killing someone such as myself! You can't do anything."

"Oh, just watch me," the General growls and attacks.

Anakin ignores all of them in favour or trying to get free of the chains again, try and get at Obi-Wan again. Obi-Wan isn't moving, he isn't sure if he's even _breathing_ and as Anakin scrabbles and struggles, his Master is just lying there against the wall, blood all over him, his arms broken, his – "Obi-Wan, damn it – Obi-Wan!" Anakin shouts and falls over as his foot slips against the floor and the chains drag him down. "Obi-Wan, answer me! Master, _come on_!"

Nothing.

Lightsabers crash and the air smells of burnt clothes and burnt hair and burnt flesh and there's a scream. Anakin looks, just for a moment, to see the two – Jedi? – still carrying out the motions of the attack, their blue lightsabers cleanly cutting through air while the Sith _screams_.

"You can't!" the Sith howls as he falls down on one knee, his arm lying on the floor, his lightsaber turning off. "The repercussions, you don't -!"

"I don't _care_ ," the armoured man answers, spins his lightsaber in hand and then plunges it down to the Sith's chest. It goes in at downward angle all the way through the Sith's torso and Anakin can't see the blade come out – it's imbedded almost in full on the Sith's body. The Sith is dead in an instant, his face stuck in look of disbelief and horror as he stares up in death.

"Is – is that," the man in Jedi robes asks in horror. "That – that's Chancellor Palpatine?!"

The armoured man turns off his lightsaber and takes a step back while drawing in a slow, shuddering breath. The Sith – Palpatine – lists to the side and falls to the floor in a heap, his face once more hidden in his black cloaks.

"We – we just killed the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic," the Jedi-robed man murmurs in shock.

"We killed a Sith lord," the armoured man answers, his voice hard.

Anakin doesn't care. He really doesn't care. "Can someone please release me? My Master," he says and struggles to his knees again. "Obi-Wan –"

They turn to him and the armoured man frowns with confusion at him while the one in Jedi tunics quickly hurries to his side. One swing of a lightsaber and the chains are all falling down around Anakin who moves before he even decided to do it, hurrying to Obi-Wan.

"Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan?!" he asks as he crashes down on his knees in front of him. His Master isn't breathing; Anakin thinks desperately and quickly searches for a pulse at his bloody, grimy neck. "Obi-Wan?! Obi-Wan!"

There's a presence behind him, beside him – the one in Jedi tunics. "Young one, let me –"

"No – _Obi-Wan_ –"

"Let me try, please," the man says and then there is a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back – the armoured one. Anakin struggles against it as he's pulled back and then he's forced to watch as the bearded man in Jedi tunics lays his Master down on the floor, and starts the rhythmically press at his chest while counting. One, two, three… The armoured man moves forward as well, to tilt Obi-Wan's head back, and pinches his nose, waiting.

"Now," the Jedi-clothed man says, still pressing on Obi-Wan's chest, and the armoured one bends down to breath powerfully into Obi-Wan's mouth. Then the compressions on Obi-Wan's chest continue.

How long it goes on, Anakin isn't sure. His vision blurs and he feels faint and ill and detached, watching how Obi-Wan twitches limply and lifelessly at each compression to his chest, his face remains lax, becoming paler and paler. Compressions and breath, compressions and breath, compressions…

Obi-Wan doesn't revive.

Anakin feels as if he's growing cold with him. The armoured man is the first to give up – he's keeping fingers on Obi-Wan's neck and after what feels like centuries and also like no time at all, he shakes his head and doesn't give Obi-Wan another breath. The man in Jedi robes tries a moment longer, his fingers twined together with one palm on top of other hand, pressing down on Obi-Wan's chest, but it's not working, it's not… it's not working.

Obi-Wan isn't breathing.

"Master," Anakin mouths and draws a ragged breath. "Master –"

He never liked calling Obi-Wan Master. He didn't _like_ Masters, and the first one he called that willingly, Master Qui-Gon, _died_ and now Obi-Wan is dead too – and sure, Anakin has seen a lot of people die, it's just every damn day thing on Tatooine, but Obi-Wan was young and healthy and he wasn't supposed to die. No one was supposed to kill a Jedi. Obi-Wan wasn't supposed to –

" _Master_ ," Anakin mouths again, and it comes out as a weak, pathetic whimper.

There are hands on him and he struggles against it for a moment before he's pulled into a chest that feels and smells familiar and something catches on Anakin's throat and he can't breathe.

"Shh, Padawan, shh," a voice murmurs in his ear, his Master's voice – these are his Master's tunics against his cheek, his tabards, just the right colour, but, but he isn't. He's someone else, Anakin can feel him be _someone else_ , can feel his beard which Obi-Wan isn't supposed to have and he can see his hair curling down to his shoulders, far too long than Obi-Wan's short cut hair and – Anakin starts wailing.

The man holds him tightly and lets him.

"What is going on here," his Master's voice asks wearily, but it's not his Master speaking.

"I have no idea," the body Anakin is clutching to answers while arms enclose around him, familiar wide sleeves, strong hands on his back. "I don't – know this."

From the peripheral edge of his awareness Anakin can see the armoured man stand up, lightsaber clipped to his belt as he moves to examine the room, to check the Sith, look for clues. Anakin can feel the man holding him watching the other man work, but he's not moving from his side and Anakin both appreciates and hates it, because he feels so much like Obi-Wan but he isn't – because Obi-Wan is dead.

Obi-Wan is _dead_ just like Qui-Gon and again Anakin is left behind, Masterless.

"Anakin," the man holding him murmurs as he rubs his warm palm up and down across Anakin's back. "I know it hurts and I am so sorry, but can you tell me where we are?"

"I don't know," Anakin sniffles and tries to pull back. The man lets him, but keeps his arms loosely around him – keeps him grounded. "We – we were on our way to mission when our ship got attacked, O-Obi-Wan thought it was pirates, I don't think it was. They didn't board us; they just punched through the hull and pumped in a poodooload of knockout gas. We tried to stay conscious but…"

He sniffles, his nose stuffy and wet. "A-and then we woke up here, in cells. It was – about day ago, I think."

The bearded version of his Master nods, stroking a hand over his hair. "Good job, thank you," he says gently and offers a smile. "You're very brave."

"I don't remember this," the armoured man says, pacing a few steps towards them and then a few steps back. "This never happened to me."

"Nor to me," the Jedi-clothed one says and looks at him, glancing him over and shaking his head in confusion. "But I don't think we're from the same timeline," he then comments, frowning at the armour. "After all – look at you."

"Don't be so sure. A lot can change in a very little time," the armoured man says, offering him a weary smile and then looking to the door. "I'm going to scout ahead, see if I can figure where we are. Stay here with – with Anakin."

"We should stay together," the Jedi-clothed one says.

"Together we're a bigger, slower moving target, alone I can move faster," the armoured man says – and then he's gone.

The Jedi-clothed one draws a breath to argue and then sighs, running a hand over his own chest oddly – and then he looks down at Anakin, his expression grieved and conflicted.

Anakin looks at his Master's body. "I-I can stay here with – with my Master," he offers. "If you want to go."

"No, of course not," the man says gently and lifts his hand to touch Anakin's cheek. "I'm staying right here, with you," he says and strokes Anakin's hair before looking around. "Here – let's… let's make your Master a bit more comfortable," he says and reaches for his cloak.

"You can't make him comfortable – he's _dead_ ," Anakin snarls and wipes at his wet face angrily.

"That doesn't mean we can't show him due respect and care," the bearded, elder version of his Master says gently. "Right?"

Anakin opens his mouth to argue and then looks at Obi-Wan – pale and bloodied and still sweaty and growing cold and _dead_. His heart thuds painfully and his breath catches and then he turns away, wiping at his eyes. "Right," he says and struggles to his feet, wavering a little.

He was used to dead people once, he thinks. Once, it didn't really matter. People died all the time. One of his friends even got blown up by their slave chip. Death happened all the time, there was no point getting sad about it because – because it just happened and getting sad doesn't help.

And yet…

Anakin glances at Obi-Wan, who's just lying there, who wouldn't ever get up again, and his vision blurs anew. Then there is a hand on his shoulder, steady and warm as it turns him away. "It's alright," the Jedi-robed one says quietly.

Then he covers Obi-Wan with his robe, pulling it over his face, and it's – it's a little easier that way. It's not good, but it's… it's easier, not having to see him.

Anakin hovers about the body for a moment and wipes at his eyes again. Wasting so much moisture, he thinks wearily and shakes his head, looking away. "What happens now?" he asks weakly.

"I –" the bearded man hesitates and then kneels down, rubbing at his chest again. "I don't know yet," he admits and glances at the _other_   body, the black robed one – the Sith. He looks away. "I'm not sure where or – or when we are. Tell me, how old are you, Anakin?"

"I'm ten," Anakin answers and sits down beside him slowly.

"That's… a little early," the bearded man murmurs. "How come you're out of the Temple? Shouldn't you still be in crèches lessons?"

"I was. There was a – thing," Anakin says and frowns. "It was a special mission for Obi-Wan or something, it was supposed to be easy one, just some… archaeological dig or something, I don't know. Learning experience. "

"Hmm, that doesn't ring any bells," the bearded man murmurs with a frown, looking at the Sith body. "But perhaps… if it came from the Senate…"

Anakin shrugs and looks at him. The man is rubbing at his chest with a odd look on his face, almost pained. "You're from the future," the boy says, half accusing.

"I am older than your Master, yes," the bearded man agrees, glancing at Obi-Wan's body and then looking at Anakin. "Ten years or so older. In my time, you're very close to becoming a Jedi knight, actually."

"Am I a good one?" Anakin asks plaintively.

"One of the very best," the man promises with a gentle smile.

Anakin takes that in for a moment, drawing a breath and then releasing it slowly. "It's not going to happen now, though, is it?" he asks and looks at the form hidden under a Jedi cloak. The cloth is growing dark at the edges, where the blood is still pooling. "Can't be a Padawan without… without a Master."

The bearded man frowns a little and then clasps a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. This won't be the end for your journey," he promise. "Trust in the Force, young one."

Anakin scoffs. "The Force got two of my Masters killed," he muttered.

"No," the bearded man says. "The _Sith_ did. This is the result of actions of individuals, not of the Force itself. The Force wills no such things."

Anakin scowls. "I really don't want a kriffin _sermon_ right now," he snaps at him.

"I'm – sorry," the man says and sighs. "But please know that the Force did not do this – _people_ did. And they have gotten their due punishment for it."

They glance together at the Sith's body. Anakin doesn't really feel that much better seeing him dead – because his Master is _also_ dead and the Sith's death does nothing to change that. But – it is better that the Sith isn't around to hurt and kill any more people, at least.

The door to the chamber opens and in an instant the bearded man is holding his lightsaber and preparing for combat. It's not another Sith, though – it's the armoured man, who looks between them and then away, at the corridor.

"I know where we are," he says. "And we need to leave, now. Come on – there's a ship we can steal."

"Obi-Wan," Anakin says quickly. "We're taking him with us; we're not leaving him here.

"We also can't leave the – " the man in Jedi-clothes looks to the Sith. He clears his throat and runs a hand over his long hair, looking a little uncomfortable.

The armoured man hesitates and then nods. He reaches out a hand and the Sith's body lifts from the floor, followed by the severed arm and the lightsaber, which the man clips to his own belt. "Quickly now, we need to move," he says.

"Why? Where are we?" the Jedi-clothed man asks even as he stands and holds a hand out to Anakin's Master – who too lifts above floor, his arms and legs hanging down a little as he floats

"Serenno," the armoured man answers grimly. "Come on. We need to go, _now_."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kudos to redhothollyberries for helping me with the chapter, many thanks :)

Obi-Wan keeps Anakin close to himself as they step out of the, well, the torture chamber. There is really no other way to describe the room they'd emerged in, with its chains and bloodstains and unnamed, unspeakable tools, never mind the rest.

He doesn't think he's ever held such a heavy burden up in Force than the body wrapped in his own cloak. Obi-Wan really wishes he had a moment to himself to come to terms with it, with the whole thing – with the sight of his own, young, beardless face, lax and expressionless in death, turning cold… but there is no time.

"This way," the elder version of him says, unlit lightsaber in hand as he motions them to follow with the other, which he's holding towards the _other_ body, the black cloaked one. The Supreme Chancellor, of all people, a Sith. No time to think about that either – or the sheer satisfaction his own future self got from killing the man. Determinedly Obi-Wan pushes the unease aside and rests a hand on Anakin's shoulder. Then he follows.

They're underground it seems – not surprising, considering how much this place feels like a dungeon. There are other rooms there, other chambers – cells and interrogation rooms. A prison, then. An old, unused one too, judging by the lack of maintenance Obi-Wan can see here and there – it's been cleaned and tidied up, but the cracks on walls and wear and tear of the floor hasn't been repaired in what looks like decades.

There are no people there – but there are droids. Or rather, there _were_ droids.

"Battle droids?" Obi-Wan murmurs, eying a pile of collapsed droids – they had been taken out by a lightsaber judging by the burns. The elder one had cleared a path for them.

"Like in Naboo?" Anakin asks, perking up in confusion.

"Lot more where those came from," the elder version of Obi-Wan says grimly and peers around a corner before motioning them to follow.

He's using hand signs, Obi-Wan thinks. He can roughly tell what the man wants to convey when he motions forward, but there is subtlety to his finger movements that goes a little beyond Obi-Wan's understanding of such things. _Military,_ he thinks and frowns.

"Wouldn't killing the droids alert the rest?" Anakin asks.

"Yes," the elder man – the _General_ – says. "Which is why we need to go."

So go they do, as fast as they can while levitating two bodies after them. Obi-Wan makes sure to keep Anakin between him and the General – at this point Anakin wouldn't have much combat training under his belt and he is unarmed besides, if they got attacked he wouldn't be able to defend himself. Anakin, if he minds it, doesn't show it and keeps low and quiet.

Of all of them, strangely the General is the quietest though, his steps soundless despite all the armour he's wearing. Plastoid composite, if Obi-Wan isn't entirely wrong. It's usually somewhat noisy – but the General makes no sound as he moves ahead. A Force technique perhaps or… or just technique of movement?

It unnerves him. Not the silence but the… the militaristic competence, the claim to a military title, the armour, all of it. His future self doesn't even _look_ like a Jedi at this point, regardless of the lightsaber he's holding.

They can't possibly come from the same timeline, can they?

The General holds out an open palm and stops abruptly, and so do Anakin and Obi-Wan. There's sounds coming from up ahead –metallic clanking of droids as they march down the hall, and footsteps. The General listens to it with a tense expression and then his eyes narrow.

"Spread out and find them," a male voice says. "They will be here somewhere still."

"Roger roger," a battle droid agrees and there is more clattering and chattering between the droids as they split up. Two of them, judging by the sound of their steps, come their way.

The General motions them to back up – but there isn't really anywhere to go, the corridor they're on is a straight and narrow one, there are no doors to hide behind. Still they back away hastily some ways, with the General staying in front, hugging the wall, unlit lightsaber in hand while the body of the Supreme Chancellor lowers gently to the floor.

The droids step into the corridor – and then they're strung in the air in the grip of Force and moment later… they're crushed by invisible pressure that turns them instantly into scrap.

Obi-Wan draws a sharp breath. It happens so fast he can barely tell what exactly destroys the droids – just the pressure they're put under, or their own limbs cracking through their shells. But that's – that's a Force Wound ability. His future self just used… a Wound ability.

The General holds out a gloved hand to them, signalling them to stay still and quiet as he waits to see whether the move was heard. It was.

"Hello?" a deep male voice asks. It really does sound oddly familiar. "Somebody there?"

The General closes his eyes briefly and breathes.

"There's no need to be afraid – we're the Security Forces of the Capital City of Serenno," the voice says, soothing. "There were reports of suspicious activity in the area and we've been investigating some missing persons reports…"

The General makes a face at that and Obi-Wan straightens his back a little. That, he believes, is what Anakin calls his _Kriffin Siths'_ face.

"We only want to help you," the deep voiced man says and his voice sounds closer now. "There is no need to be alarmed, we're only –"

The General lights his lightsaber and the moment the man steps around the corner the blue blade goes to his neck, leaving the speaker at lightsaber point and the General threatening his life.

"Count Dooku," the General says, while Obi-Wan's eyebrows arch. Dooku, Qui-Gon's Master? He'd never met the man himself – Master Dooku left the Order years ago in Obi-Wan's time, not… not that much after Qui-Gon's death, actually. Nowadays he was a politician, wasn't he? Or rather in future… That must be where he knows the voice from – the Separatist Speeches.

"Ah," the taller, grey bearded man says, lifting his chin a little and holding his hands up slowly. "That's quite the greeting, but if it makes you feel more at ease. You seem to have the advantage of me, Master Jedi –" he stops, his eyes sliding from the General to the dark clad body on the floor and then snap up to Obi-Wan and Anakin and he frowns, looking between him and the General.

"Sidious is dead," the General says to the taller man, the lightsaber steady at his hand as narrows his eyes at him. "Is it Tyranus yet?"

Obi-Wan has no idea what he's talking, but Master Dooku obviously does – his eyes widen a little and he looks down at the body sharply. Then he takes the General in again, then Obi-Wan, peering at their faces and – recognising them. "Kenobi?" he says in realisation. "Obi-Wan Kenobi. Two of you?"

"Three, actually," Obi-Wan says and glances at the body he's lowered to the floor as well in preparation of potential combat – still wrapped in his cloak it is indistinguishable from any other body, but past the cloak one can see the rather distinct Jedi boots.

"Is it Tyranus yet?" the General asks again and the lightsaber in his hand shifts just a hair’s breadth closer to Dooku's skin.

The elder man swallows and his eyes move back to the General's face. "No," he says slowly. "Not yet. Can I confirm that he's dead?" he asks.

The General's face remains suspicious and impassive as he waves a hand at the dark clad body, and with Force yanks the hood from over the Supreme Chancellor's face. His face is still stuck in look of horror and confusion, and there's blood all over his neck.

Dooku moves slowly, the lightsaber at his throat following him tightly as he goes to the body and kneels down to check it. He presses at the neck for a moment and then pulls his hand back. "That is…" the Count says and trails away, looking at the General. "This is… most excellent and terrible turn of events."

"I bet," the General says suspiciously.

"You are too old. You can't be this old unless… you are from the future," Dooku says and stands up, slowly, still at lightsaber point. The General doesn't answer, just stares at him, and Dooku nods slowly. "How was the outcome?"

"Palpatine had you beheaded by his third apprentice," General says flatly.

"… ah," Dooku says, frowning and looking a little taken back. "And… the rest?"

"All according to his plan, from what I could tell," General says and narrows his eyes. "It's been already commissioned, hasn't it? You've been to Kamino. Is Sifo Dyas dead yet?"

"Oh, you know everything, don't you," Dooku murmurs and the General takes a step back, obviously preparing for battle as he tenses up and holds the lightsaber at the ready. "Peace, my friend," Dooku says, holding his hands up and looking down to Palpatine. "I am not fool enough to get into a combat with a man who can kill a Sith Master at the height of his power. But this – this complicates things. Greatly."

"Right. Your lightsaber," the General says, his tone sharp, commanding. "Give it to me – and call the droids off."

Dooku hesitates just for a moment and then does as asked – handing his lightsaber off and then taking out a comms unit. While Obi-Wan frowns, trying to rewind the discussion in his head and make some more sense of it, Dooku speaks into the comms, declaring all clear and telling the droids to withdraw.

Sifo Dyas was a Master in the Jedi Council – some ten years ago. He'd been declared dead after he'd been missing for a year. Obi-Wan had been a fresh knight back then, busy getting the necessary field experience so that he'd be one day prepared to take Anakin with him on the field, so he hadn't really paid much mind to it, but… Hadn't Sifo Dyas and Master Dooku been friends…?

"There are things in motion that you have put quite the wrench to," Dooku says, handing the comms unit to the General as well, who clips it to his waist, beside the collection of lightsabers he now has. "And yet I am not sure if the motion can be stopped now. Yes, I have been to Kamino – the order was placed nearly a year ago. The first batches have been, as they say in Kamino… corked recently."

The General eyes the elder man a moment longer and then, finally, turns his lightsaber off. "How big is the initial patch? How many are under way?"

"Tens of thousands," Dooku says simply and glances back at Obi-Wan and Anakin. "What in Force's name happened here?"

"Not yet," the General says, glancing at them and then looking at Dooku again. "Tell me why Palpatine brought  them here," he motions at Anakin and the body at Obi-Wan's feet. "Why were they kidnapped at all? Shouldn't that just put undue suspicion on him – or rather, on _you_ since they were brought here?"

Dooku takes a breath and then looks down. "A vision, I understand," he says with a somewhat displeased expression and shakes his head. "I have never been privy to more than the broad strokes of his plan, but I understand he saw Knight Kenobi as something of a threat to himself in the future."

"You don't say," Obi-Wan mutters, looking between the General – and the Sith, whom he _killed_.

"Quite," Dooku mutters and runs a hand over the lapels of his coat, looking uncomfortable. "In any case, a dead Jedi and apprentice on Serenno would put less suspicion on him than it would on me, so it was a safer alternative for him I believe. And for his plans having Serenno a target of Jedi suspicion wasn't exactly detrimental – Naboo, on other hand, would be."

He trails off and shakes his head. "Not that it matters much now."

"Doesn't matter?" Anakin mouths. "Doesn't matter – my Master is dead!" he snaps. "That – that thing killed my Master, it kriffin _matters_!"

Obi-Wan rests a hand on the boy's shaking shoulder and the General closes his eyes briefly while Dooku glances at his way.

"Knight Kenobi is…?" he asks and then sighs. "I am very sorry," he says, and he sounds like he means it too, glancing between Anakin, Obi-Wan and the General. "How are you here?"

"We don't know," Obi-Wan admits and gives the General a look when the man casts him a look. "We don't, do we? Last thing I remember is returning to Coruscant from a mission. Nothing on my end caused this."

The General presses his lips together and then, finally, _awkwardly_ , looks at Anakin. Obi-Wan narrows his eyes a little, taking his expression. It's not the first time the elder man has seemed to have difficulties looking at the boy. That unease, that tightness – something's happened. Something's happened to _Anakin_ in his time, something terrible.

"Anakin," the General says. "Did the Sith – _do_ something?"

"Other than torture and _kill_ Obi-Wan?" the boy asks and makes a face, shrugging is shoulder. "There was this array of weird red symbols behind Obi-Wan – _he_ ," Anakin glares at Palpatine's body, "said it was supposed to _bring forth the truth_ or something. And then he asked about Obi-Wan's potential or whatever – I don't know."

"Red symbols," Dooku repeats slowly, thoughtfully. "Glowing, I imagine? Sith Magic, then."

"Did they feel dark, Anakin?" Obi-Wan asks quietly. The whole room had been _mired_ in Darkness, so it wouldn't surprise him in the least if they did, but just to be sure…

"Yeah. _Really_ dark. They pulsed and they kind of felt – alive, I don't know. Then they sort of ripped open and then you were there," Anakin shrugs and looks down at his cloak-clad Master. "And then Obi-Wan… was dead."

Obi-Wan sighs and grips his shoulder comfortingly, looking at the General who makes a face and looks away.

"Very interesting," Dooku murmurs and runs a hand over his beard as he looks between Obi-Wan and the General. "I suppose that would make you the potential of Obi-Wan Kenobi. But why _two_ of you? Two different potential futures?"

Obi-Wan arches his eyebrows and looks at the General, who looks back, looking him over. Then the General shakes his head and turns to Dooku. "Same future at different times," he says and narrows his eyes. "Regardless, Palpatine is dead – that will have repercussions, and your plan is _ruined_ now. Time to make a decision, Dooku. Let us go, report all of this to the Jedi Council and to the Senate, and own up to it…"

"Or what?" Dooku asks, narrowing his eyes.

"Or do it as a prisoner under interrogation," the General says and arches an eyebrow as he rests a hand on the three lightsabers at his waist. "Your choice."

Dooku looks down and then turns his eyes to Palpatine. "Right," he says and takes a breath. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to accompany me to my estate perhaps some refreshments and perhaps some rest while I think on it?"

"No," the General says flatly. "No, we would not be willing, no."

Dooku frowns and glances at Obi-Wan. "No?" he asks.

Obi-Wan glances at the General, who meets his eyes steadily. The man is very abrupt in his decision making and the way he's commanding the situation is starting to sit a bit ill at ease with Obi-Wan – but the man is obviously privy to more information than Obi-Wan is here, he knows Dooku's history and future better. Uninformed as he is… Obi-Wan couldn't hope to make the right decision here.

And as it is – he can _feel_ his other self's intentions. He's torn and confused and alarmed under his impassive expression, but all he wants to do now is secure the situation as quick as he can. Secure Palpatine's body and Dooku's compliance, and get the whole matter to Coruscant where it might be dealt with due process.

The General's expression gives away little, only his unease and tension.

"No," Obi-Wan decides. "You need to choose now, Dooku. Willingly or as a prisoner, you're coming with us to Coruscant."

Dooku's lips press together tightly and he hesitates. "I suppose there is a ship out there waiting for you to steal it?" he asks wryly. "It's a four day trip from Serenno to Coruscant, you know. Is it stocked for all four of us?"

The General's eyes narrow. "We're all Jedi here. I'm sure we'll manage," he says wryly.

* * *

 

The ship is not, in fact, stocked for four people. It's a small two person starskiff with only one sleeping cabin and nothing in way of extra sleeping spaces. Dooku makes quite a few displeased faces about it, even offers that they could swing by his estate and take _his_ ship which is much better fitted for larger number of people, but the General is relentless.

"We'll manage," the man says while roughly pushing Dooku inside. "I am not giving you a chance to escape or call reinforcements, Dooku. Don't even think about it."

While Obi-Wan and Anakin do what they can to make Knight Kenobi bit more comfortable – which isn't much, sadly. Because of the long journey and the lack of suitable facilities on the skiff, they have to leave both of the bodies in the airlock where the close proximity of to the air-conditioning units would keep them cool and from rotting. Hopefully they wouldn't have to dock with anything during the trip, Obi-Wan muses, because that would be a rather awkward welcome for anyone trying to enter.

"I don't like this," Anakin mutters, as they gently wrap Knight Kenobi's body, binding the cloak around him with straps to keep him as contained as possible. "I don't like _any of this_."

"I know. I'm sorry young one, but it's the best we can do," Obi-Wan says quietly and runs a hand over his head. It's a little undignified for a Jedi but it's still better than leaving him behind – and in the airlock the body would be out of Anakin's view for a little while. It wouldn't be enough to help the boy recover or give him any peace of mind, the death of a Master isn't something you can recover with anything less than months and years… but it would be a little easier for a little while.

"Come on," Obi-Wan says and guides him away from the airlock. They seal the hatch and leave Knight Kenobi to the company of the Supreme Chancellor – something Obi-Wan doesn't like anymore than Anakin seems to but alas, their options are limited. "Let's go see what the General is doing."

"The General," Anakin repeats and looks up. "Is that what we're calling him? What does that make you? I am not calling you _Master_."

Obi-Wan sighs and rubs at his chest. He's not even that far away from the General now – there's not that much space inside the skiff, he can't get further than thirty meters away from the man, and even so… he can feel the distance. "I… no, of course not. I don't know, Anakin," he admits and shakes his head, lowering his hand. "This is all rather confusing for me as well."

Anakin nods slowly and looks at the airlock. Then, taking a deep breath, he turns away from it and together they head for the cockpit.

The General is through the pre-flight check – Dooku is sitting in the co-pilot's seat, leaning back with his arms folded and is probably trying to look regal rather than sullen. He doesn't succeed very well.

"All done, then?" the General asks, and Obi-Wan nods. The General glances him over, his eyes flicking up to his face. Whatever he sees there, Obi-Wan doesn't know, but he frowns a little before nodding and turning back to the controls.

Moment later they're off, and as the Supreme Chancellor's Skiff travels under diplomatic immunity… no one so much as questions their sudden take off, never mind stop them. Though small, the skiff is very fast and very advanced, and it takes no time at all – and seemingly no effort either – before they're already through the atmosphere and in space.

The General punches in the coordinates for Coruscant, and moment later stars outside stretch and they're away, jumped into hyperspace and on their way to the Capital.

Obi-Wan takes a breath and releases it slowly. It's not exactly going to _home_ as he knows it, this time is entirely wrong for him, but… it's better than being in a world he doesn't know, in a time he's left behind, surrounded by all these worrisome concepts he doesn't quite yet understand. Time travel and Sith machinations and darkness – and his own self, one from future of an alternate world, one dead all too young in the airlock.

Force, but Obi-Wan needs a moment of peace and quiet and meditation, and soon too.

There's a moment of silence as they all settle into the realisation that they're on the way, Dooku sighing while the General goes through checking the systems. Obi-Wan takes the moment to finally really take in his elder self.

It's… odd, looking at himself like this. He can't quite tell how much older the General is compared to him. His hair is short and the cut is neat – though the combat from before has thrown it into something of a disarray. His beard is slightly thicker than Obi-Wan's – but it has a hint of grey on it, as does his hair. There are crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. Ten years older. Perhaps more.

He looks formidable, Obi-Wan thinks somewhat confusedly. He looks like someone people would almost automatically and unquestionably respect, whose orders people follow. It's… odd seeing that on someone with his own face. But if this is what he would look like at forty five or so… it's not terribly bad, if a bit more _proper_ than he imagined himself ever becoming.

"Search the ship," the General then says, glancing at Obi-Wan and jolting him out of his thoughts. "If there's comms units here, get rid of them."

"Pray tell, who would I communicate with?" Dooku asks with cool sort of amusement. "Palpatine is dead."

"Trade Federation, Techno Union – the Banking Guild. If not them, then the Kaminoans," the General says and looks at him. "Palpatine wasn't without his friends and neither are you."

Dooku allows that with a wave of his hand and sigh. "Very well," he says and leans back again.

Obi-Wan frowns, glancing between them. "I know of the Trade Federation, Techno Union and the Banking Guild, they're all Separatist in my time… but who are the Kaminoans?" he ask.

"Species of people who do business in mass production of _clones_ ," Dooku says, glancing at him and giving him a wry smile. "What time are you from?"

"Just before the clone wars, I think," the General says, glancing back at Obi-Wan. "What year is it for you? What date?"

Obi-Wan tells him and the General nods slowly. "Hmm, little under four years ago for me. That would put you – ah, just before Kamino, actually."

Obi-Wan coughs. "I'm sorry – four years?" he asks faintly while Dooku and Anakin look between them. "You're only four years older than me?"

"Three and ten months I think, to be bit more precise," the General says and starts tugging his gloves off. He gives Obi-Wan a look. " _Only_ ," he repeats wryly.

Obi-Wan clears his throat. Apparently he does not age well at all. "Our… timelines must be different," he says awkwardly. "So what's special about Kaminoans?" he asks, though considering the things he's heard so far, he has a bad feeling he can guess. Clone wars had been mentioned several times now, after all.

"They're lovely people," Dooku says. "Very efficient and professional. You'd like them, I'm sure – they are very _Jedi_ in their mode of thinking. Very… balanced and unaffected."

"And they mass produce… clones?" Obi-Wan repeats.

"You mean they make _people_?" Anakin asks, looking between Dooku and the General. "Why?"

Dooku waves a hand somewhat dismissively. "They clone whatever they are commissioned to clone. People, animals, plants, whatever. Generally for crops and livestock and such. People are mostly cloned for spare organs, I understand," he says. "That's their main source of income – they make clones of people to use as essentially spare parts. They also deal in species preservation – cloning and replicating extinct creatures for various disaster struck planets."

"In this case, they were commissioned to make an army of cloned soldiers, the Great Army of the Galactic Republic," General Kenobi says and sets his gloves down on his knee, stretching his fingers. "Two hundred thousand perfectly identical soldiers to use in Palpatine's future war – initially. At the end, we'd produced somewhere in the neighbourhood of three million of them."

"Produced –?" Obi-Wan repeats in slowly dawning horror.

"You're talking about people. You made… people to be soldiers?" Anakin asks, confused and uneasy.

"Three million, indeed?" Dooku asks, arching his eyebrows. "You're from the very end of the – Clone War, was it? How long did it last?"

"Little over three years," the General answers, and gives him a look. "Three million and seventy thousand clones compared to your nearly fifty million droids."

"The war ended up quite bit more destructive than we envisioned, then," Dooku muses.

"No, no, no, no, get back to the part where _you made people_ ," Anakin says, looking between them in horror. "You can't just _make people_."

The General glances and sighs. "The clone army was already finished by the time we discovered it. We had very little to do with the making of it," he says and looks at Dooku. "It was commissioned by Master Sifo Dyas under the manipulations of our dear Count Dooku and his Master, Darth Sidious. It was produced, trained and finished in secret. We discovered it _just in time_ to launch into a galactic war Sidious designed for us – with clone armies on Republic's side, and droid armies on Separatists' side."

Obi-Wan opens his mouth and snaps it shut. "Darth Sidious – you mean Palpatine? He designed a war – _why_?"

"Power, control, chaos, confusion – to shake the foundations of the Republic until they're in ruins and he could whatever he wished with it," the General says, his voice weary. "And of course to destroy the Jedi Order while he's at it."

Obi-Wan swallows. "I – no," he says and shakes his head in denial. "No."

The General glances at him. "As far as I know, in my time I am one of last _two_ surviving Jedi," he says, his voice quiet.

"That was the plan," Dooku agrees, running a hand over his beard while Obi-Wan and Anakin just gape at the General, who looks away awkwardly. "Engineer a war to throw the Republic into confusion, during which our Supreme Chancellor Palpatine could assume more powers. Emergency powers, unregulated and unrestricted so that he could in place new laws, take out old ones, make allegiances, force changes, and so on and so on until finally –"

"He could crown himself the Emperor of the First Galactic Empire – which he did," the General agrees and Dooku hums, frowning and watching him curiously while the General himself stares up ahead, at space and at none of them.

Obi-wan opens his mouth and then closes it with a snap.

"I'm glad he's dead," Anakin says then.

The General draws a breath and releases it slowly. "So am I," he says quietly and bows his head a little.

Obi-Wan shakes his head slowly. "This couldn't have been happening in my time," he says. "The Separatist movement is a around, but – not this."

The General says nothing for a moment while Dooku considers them silently. Then the General looks at back at Obi-Wan and he looks sorry. He looks terribly, sadly _sorry_ for him. "From what I can tell, they're not terribly different – our two timelines," he says and swivels the pilot's chair around a little. "Let me think, what happened around your time… Cato Nemoidia?"

Obi-Wan makes a face at that – even the name makes an unpleasant feel crawl down his back. "We just came back from that mission."

The General smiles briefly. "Ah. Yes. Not so different, then."

"Cato Nemoidia?" Dooku asks with cool curiosity.

"Don't ask," Obi-Wan mutters and the General shakes his head, amused.

"In about… month from now, you would be assigned another mission – to guard a senator who recently came under a suspected Separatist assassination attempt," the General says. "From there the ball would get rolling – your investigation of the assassination would lead you to Kamino, to the clone army, and then to Geonosis, to a droid army and him," he motions at Dooku, "at the head of the Separatist movement. And from there in few short days… the Clone Wars would begin."

"But – no conflict can start that fast, especially not a whole galactic war," Obi-Wan objects.

"It's not fast – it's decades in the making," the General says apologetically. "Decades of laws and regulations and general dissent in the Republic – especially so in the last ten years in your time, where policies have gotten increasingly unfair for the Outer Rim systems. In your time they're not very happy with their status in the galaxy. When the Clone Wars begins and the Separatists begin really rallying, tens of thousands of star systems will leap at the chance of leaving the Republic. It's already well on it's way in your time, isn't it."

Obi-Wan frowns and – he can't really disagree with any of that. Nor can he disagree with the General's expression, can't deny the honesty of it, the sad brutal sincerity. The General nods in agreement to his silent defeat and then turns his eyes downwards, to Anakin who is scowling up at them in confusion.

Again there is that unease and hardness – no, _hurt_ – in his eyes before he looks away, and at Dooku. "What's the precise date?" he asks.

Dooku tells them, still eying the General consideringly.

"About a year since Master Qui-Gon died. This makes it ten years before my time," Obi-Wan murmurs slowly, watching the other man's expression closely. Is he really his own future version? Is what he's saying _really_ Obi-Wan's future, and not even his distant future, but his _immediate future_?

Well not anymore, not here, and yet…

"About fourteen for me," the General says and runs a hand over his whiskers slowly. "In my time we didn't leave Coruscant on joined missions until about four years after this time."

"It was same for me, Anakin just turned fourteen when we went on our first mission together," Obi-Wan agrees and folds his arms a little uneasily. "And obviously neither of us _died_ , nor did the Supreme Chancellor… so this past at least is different now."

"Hm, changed because of a Sith vision," the General mutters and looks at Dooku.

"Don't look at me, Master Kenobi," the Count says. "I had no more control over your arrival here as did you, it seems."

"General," the elder version of Obi-Wan corrects and then nods at Obi-Wan’s direction. "He would be the Master. We're the two potentials – at two crossroads of my life. He's the Master at the very end of that part of his career – and I am the General at the very end of mine."

"Indeed?" Count Dooku asks. "Does that mean you stopped being a Jedi Master when you became a General? Did you leave the Order? How interesting."

"Hardly," the General says and looks away. "It simply was no longer the priority."

Obi-Wan swallows at that and looks away. He's still not entirely convinced this man is of his future, though. It's just… too many changes in too little a time. And perhaps a galactic war is an answer to that, maybe people can really change so much in such a little time, stranger things have happened, but still…

General Kenobi looks like a wholly different person from him. All they seem to share now is a face and the general's looks like he's aged a decade in what he claims to be four years. And though Obi-Wan is fairly certain he could've been able to tell if the man was lying… it is still a bit too much to claim that this is what he will be in mere four years time.

"What happens now?" Anakin finally asks, breaking the tense silence.

"Now we go to Coruscant and report this all to the Jedi High Council and then to the Senate," the General says and doesn't look at him. "And whatever comes after that will come _after_. Now," he straightens his back a little. "I believe I said something about the comms."

Obi-Wan swallows. "Right," he says. "Right. Come, Anakin – you help me search the ship."

It would get them both away from these two – him away from his horrible, armour clad future, and Anakin away from whatever horror waited for him behind General Kenobi's grieved eyes. And considering how the General avoids even looking at Anakin all the while he shares all these other horrors so freely…

Obi-Wan isn't really looking forward to learning what it is.


	3. Chapter 3

It isn't until he has had the chance to search the ship himself and confirm there is nothing there for Dooku to use to try and make his escape, that Obi-Wan manages to relax a little. It still takes Dooku claiming the bedroom for himself – something Obi-Wan doesn't bother arguing with seeing as it puts the man away from the cockpit – before he can breathe a little easier.

The idea has started to settle now, though. It's been few hours and having to concentrate onto escape, piloting and now to making sure they stay on course where they're going with no unwelcome surprise, it has given him time to accustom himself to the idea. Dooku not quite back from dead but alive. Two versions of himself: one dead and the other very alive, almost too much so… and Anakin.

Dear Force, Anakin.

"Why are we letting him have the bedroom?" Anakin asks, somewhere behind him where the other version of Obi-Wan hovers by the boy.

"I don't know," the other answers and Obi-Wan can hear him turn to him by the sound of his voice. "Why are we letting Dooku have the bedroom?"

"It keeps him contained to one location on the ship and out from underfoot," Obi-Wan answers. And he can remotely lock the door from the cockpit if he needs be, he adds silently to himself – something he might do just on principle when it's time for him to catch some sleep. He'd hold off on that for as long as possible, though. And he's gone through longer that four days with no sleep, he could handle it.

… Okay, maybe isn't quite relaxed again.

"Right," his younger self says, somewhat dubious. "Leaves us without a bed to sleep in."

"There's the chairs."

"Sleeping on a pilot's chair. Lovely."

Obi-Wan frowns a little but keeps his eyes on the window in front of him, where the stars are wheeling past them. So that's what his sarcasm sounds from the outside. Good to know. "I'm sure you can join Dooku if you'd like," he answers, just as wry. "I'm sure he'd enjoy that greatly."

"… I'll pass, thank you," the other says and sighs, and then he's in the corner of Obi-Wan's vision, moving to take the co-pilot's seat. Anakin follows him, leaning to the back of the chair, looking outside.

Ten years old, Obi-Wan thinks. His hair is cut short, the tail slightly longer at the back than it used to be at the very start – not much of a Padawan braid yet, but it's there, barely long enough to touch his shoulder, with no adornments on it yet, just the coloured bind at the end. Just one for now, blue string signaling Knight Kenobi's mastership. The red one wouldn't be added until Knight Kenobi became a Master Kenobi... which would never happen.

Anakin's face is still soft with baby fat, but he's already taller than in the beginning. A year's worth of careful nutritional treatment to recover from nine years of slavery. How tall would've Anakin been without the years of malnutrition?

"This is going to be a long ride," his other self comments and Obi-Wan can feel his eyes on him. "Are you going to wear the armour the whole way?"

Obi-Wan glances at him and then looks back ahead. "I don't exactly have anything to change to," he says. "And I am not wearing Palpatine's clothes." Or stripping their younger self of his, that would be… beyond morbid and symbolic in a way Obi-Wan isn't about to try and tackle right now. "It's fine, I'm used to it. It's not really even that uncomfortable."

"Right," his other self says, dubious as he looks down somewhere in the neighbourhood of Obi-Wan's hips where the plates are not so comfortably digging into his flesh. Obi-Wan chuckles and shakes his head. That obvious, huh?

"Do all Jedi wear armour where you come from?" Anakin asks, leaning his arms onto the back of the co-pilot's seat and his chin on his arms.

"… Not all of them," Obi-Wan admits after a moment and looks away again. Towards the end, no one did, really – they'd gotten over confident, their abilities proven by the war and their own survival of it, they trusted in their lightsabers… and in their clone troopers. "The smart ones did."

Anakin hums, looking him over. He looks tired. "It's pretty wizard. Jedi in armour. It's like you're a proper knight and stuff."

"What am I, then, a fake knight?" the other Obi-Wan asks, glancing back at him with an amused smile.

"Yep, you're a compete faker," the boy says and yawns into his arms.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes and feels a sudden rush of painful nostalgia for – for _all of it_. That little idiom which Anakin had eventually stopped using because he was the only one who did and no one understood what he meant with it. That easy, casual banter. He and Anakin had lost it, gained it, and then lost it again somewhere in the war – when working together in the field had passed in favour of trials and court sessions and hearings, where Anakin's voice started growing increasingly stiff and proper and courtly. Palpatine's and Padmé's influence too, probably, those speech patterns that eventually made Anakin sound like a complete stranger to Obi-Wan.

He can't even remember the last time they exchanged words that hadn't probably been rehearsed before and mentally plotted out like pre-determined dialogue, until they were less like _people_ and more actors, stuck in terrible roles. These easy, casual, _simple_ words… he can barely even remember them now.

The other Obi-Wan is watching him, eyes intent, and Obi-Wan realises he's gritting his teeth and quickly stops, forcing his jaw to relax.

"I'm tired," Anakin mutters into his arms. "And there's no bed. This blows."

"Come here," the other, younger Obi-Wan says easily and gets up. "You can get a little more comfortable on the chair."

"No, you keep it; I can sleep on the floor –"

"Anakin, sit," the younger says and easily wrangles the boy into the seat beside Obi-Wan's and suddenly Obi-Wan feels like getting up and pacing. His younger self is standing in the way of getting up, though, in between the two chairs with one hand on the back of pilot's chair and the other on the co-pilot's seat as he helps Anakin get comfortable on the chair. "Let's see if we can tilt the chair back…"

A teacher and a caretaker at his prime, Obi-Wan muses wryly, watching him fuss from the corner of his eyes. It had taken him some time to finally stop constantly worrying for Anakin, but his younger self is nowhere near that point yet. At his time, Anakin would've been a senior Padawan, proven and tested and about to start embarking on his first solo missions – which had been utterly nerve wrecking, if Obi-Wan recalls it right. Going from that to _this_ is probably not helping the younger version of him to settle those nerves.

He still loves Anakin so much. Obi-Wan isn't sure if he's sorry or jealous.

The silence stretches as Anakin gets comfortable. The other Obi-Wan hovers near, all but keeping watch over the Boy – but then again, there isn't really any other place to go. Only thing the skiff has in the back is a fresher, the bedroom, a small cramped kitchen corner, and the airlock. No place to get away from each other.

Ten minutes, twenty – around the thirty minute mark the exhaustion finally tells and Anakin falls asleep. Another five minutes passes in silence of stretches stars and humming hyperdrive engines before the other Obi-Wan speaks.

"What happens to him?"

Obi-Wan sighs and leans back. He _really_ doesn't want to tell him. Hell, he isn't sure he's come to terms with it himself. If he ever will. But on other hand… this is himself. And he would want to know.

"Nothing good," Obi-Wan answers and glances at the boy, to see if he's really sleeping. He is – there are no signs of Anakin faking it and at this point Obi-Wan is pretty sure he knows all the tells. "I don't know when it happens, I don't know how – Palpatine was behind it but I don't know when it started. Somewhere during the war, but… I never noticed," he says and looks away again. "He turned Anakin to the Dark side."

He more hears than sees the way his other self startles at that. "No – _Anakin_?"

Obi-Wan sighs. "There were other factors," he admits and closes his eyes. "But yes. The war ended with Darth Vader walking into the Jedi Temple with a battalion of soldiers and _killing_ everyone inside. I saw the aftermath. They didn't even clean away the bodies. I was going after him when this," he motions between them, " _thing_ grabbed me."

There's a slowly drawn breath behind him and he can feel the other try and centre himself. He's shuddering, inside and out, shaking his head. "I can't believe it," he says. "Not my Anakin."

How hopelessly naive he is. But then he himself wouldn't have believed it at that age, would've he? Not after years of defending Anakin from the censure of the Jedi Order, of justifying his admission to it, of shielding him from doubt and distrust. Anakin had felt it, though, that judgement of his peers had always managed to seep in no matter how Obi-Wan tried to shelter him from it, and it had left its marks. But it had left it marks on Obi-Wan too, probably.

War had taught him, shown him some of the man Anakin had become – but still he tried to defend him to the very end, and deny the obvious darkness. It had taken a temple full of bodies, a holovideo, and Padmé crying over her pregnant belly, to really prove him wrong.

And part of him still wants to deny it, wants to object and argue against… someone about it. But there's no one left.

There's a hand on his shoulder, a weight on the pauldron, and Obi-Wan's eyes snap open. He hadn't even sensed the other move, but the younger version of him is now looking down at him now, his eyes searching. What shows on Obi-Wan's face, he isn't sure. Tiredness, probably.

Damn it, he hasn't had a chance to rest since Utapau – hasn't had the time to relax since his own clone troopers, since _Cody_ , shot him in the back.

"How?" the other asks quietly. "Tell me, how did it come to that point?"

Obi-Wan draws a slow breath, glancing at Anakin. Sleeping the blank, deadening sleep of the exhausted, he thinks and then looks up at the younger man.

He looks… soft and golden and utterly bizarre – like an old picture slightly out of focus, too damn sweet to be real. There's core of steel there, though, intent in his eyes that makes Obi-Wan straighten up in his seat a little. The other might not be a soldier yet, but he is still a Jedi Knight and a Master.

"The assassination attempt of Padmé Amidala," he says and the other's eyebrows lift a little. "We were assigned to protect her and uncover the identity of the attacker…" and so he details the start of the Clone Wars – not only as he'd experienced them, but as he suspects Anakin had. At the time the whole business with Padmé Amidala had been somewhat inconsequential in face of the start of the war, but knowing what he knows now of Anakin's and Padmé's relationship…

Why had he never questioned how they came to be on Geonosis? Yes, he'd asked, Anakin had made reports, but _still_ …

"She told me later about how they'd gone to Tatooine. Anakin had been having dreams and visions of his mother and he wanted to make sure she was alright – they got there just in time to see her die, I believe," Obi-Wan continues. "Padmé wouldn't say what happened after that, but I could tell it was nothing pleasant. After that, they got my transmission from Geonosis, and came to my aid. Or tried to, anyway."

And then the mess of Geonosis, the start of the war, how it had overtaken everything, how it had become the first priority over everything. Thing's Anakin's unusual and often alarming attachment to Padmé, became secondary. "Padmé said they got married very soon after that," Obi-Wan continues. "That's where the lying began, I suppose."

The other man is leaning to the back of the pilot's chair, his presence a weight on Obi-Wan's back as he tries to sort out his thoughts on the follow up. Three years of war and thousands little slips he had let past because there were always more important things to be worried about. Blockades and battles and relief efforts, another planet besieged, another system taken, sightings of Dooku and Griveous, whispers of super weapons – and countless of dead Jedi, everywhere.

"During the war Anakin build a… friendship with the Supreme Chancellor," Obi-Wan says. "All Jedi enjoyed some level of _publicity_ during the war because of our status as Generals and Commanders in the Grand Army, but Anakin more than most, and I think that was Palpatine's doing. Whenever he could he singled Anakin out for special missions and assignments and made sure to reward him of them with copious public praise…"

He should've known better. Anakin had always been weak to praise, to validation and Palpatine had all but showered him in it. But back then they'd still had trust in the Supreme Chancellor, and certainly there were worse things for the Leader of a Republic to do than favour a Jedi. If anything, in writing it seems like enormously good thing – a leader with attachment to such a pillar of morality as a Jedi was surely only to the benefit of the Republic as whole…

Except it wasn't an attachment to a Jedi – just to Anakin. And his slow manipulation to a downward spiral, no doubt.

Obi-Wan trails a way, running fingers over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. There's a constant thrum of _anxiety_ in the back of his head, and the emotions he's getting off his younger self aren't helping. Sith's Hell, he's so tired…

"Was there anything about that war that was real?" his younger self asks quietly.

"The death was real," Obi-Wan answers. "That part of it was very real."

There's a moment of silence as he broods darkly over his own words, his recollections, trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong, where the slip had happened – when had Anakin learned that he couldn't trust him, when he decided he couldn't rely on him? He can almost tell where the lying started – but he still doesn't know why.

The other is watching Anakin sleep and Obi-Wan forces himself to look. Anakin is still so young here, painfully young – and already so much darkness on his back. His Master is death at the hands of a Sith twice over now, and who knows what Palpatine had forced him to watch before the end. They'd emerged in a chamber where Knight Kenobi had been hung on a damn wall – and Anakin chained to another. How long had they been there? How much had Palpatine forced on Anakin?

Obi-Wan can almost _follow_ the trail of thought his other self is going down – how to deal with this fall out, how to steer Anakin through it, how to make sure this loss and darkness wouldn't mar him, wouldn't mark him and certainly wouldn't _stay with him_. Already he's fitting himself into the role of this Anakin's caretaker and he's doing it gladly, almost desperately.

Neither of them has yet thought of it. Certainly they haven't worded it. But they know – they know with the surety of the Force itself. Neither of them is going back to where they came from. The other refuses to think about it because of all the things he's left behind – his own, older Padawan he will never see again.

"Do you think the war can be resolved before it starts?" the other asks after a while. "In this time the galaxy isn't past the point of return yet, is it?

"Yes and no. I don't know – I don't know how far Palpatine's manipulations go," Obi-Wan admits. "I know they begun years before this – the commissioning of the clone army alone is… impossible without years of planning and preparation. Amassing the funds alone would take time. And the clone army is already on the way."

The other hums, frowning a little. "How does the clone army work?" he asks. "How is… this is little early, is it? Or late – I don't really know how cloning works."

"It depends on the type of cloning and how the process is made, what the desired outcome is," Obi-Wan takes a breath. "In this case they wanted loyal human soldiers for the Republic, and they wanted them as fast as possible while also having time to train them with all the necessary skills. So, the clones age twice as fast as home grown humans. In ten years they will be ready for war."

"So they were… ten years old at the start of the war?" the other asks, sounding a little disturbed at the thought.

"Later clones were even younger. Training time got cut short by a year, then two – and the growth rate was subtly accelerated," Obi-Wan agrees with a sigh. "We had losses to recover and not enough time to wait a decade long production. Towards the end…"

"Production, that's – " the man behind him mutters a curse. "And this – people thought this was okay?" he asks with disbelief.

Obi-Wan says nothing for a moment then finally pushes the chair around, almost knocking the other off as he swivels the seat completely to face him. "Ten years of manipulation and careful management of the political situation," he says and waves a dismissive hand. "We had a war in our hands. Yes, there were objectors, there were entire systems that objected – they eventually became the Council of Neutral systems, there were hundreds of them. The loudest protestors got very quickly silenced, either by carefully targeted Separatist attacks or by backroom politics. I don't think anyone thought it was _just_ exactly – but… when the alternative is conscription…"

"And no one volunteered?" the younger man asks, frowning as he grabs his own elbows, tucking his arms in.

Obi-Wan takes in the slightly defensive posture and sighs. "There were volunteers," he says. "But even the most devout and determined group of volunteers doesn't compare to trained and skilled squadron of readymade soldiers. Volunteers have to be trained and armed, which takes money and time and effort – and sometimes they even have to be paid. The clones were… cost effective in comparison."

The younger man makes a face at that, leaning back a bit as if he's smelled something unpleasant and Obi-Wan almost smiles. So righteous, he thinks and shakes his head.

"Morals, and ethics are the first thing to go in war," he says. "It becomes all about the wins and losses. We hung onto our principles the best we could, but… we were manipulated too. Everyone was."

"You said the Jedi were – "

"Killed, yes, but before that we were corrupted," Obi-Wan says dismissively. "We were turned into soldiers. It looks so very simple and nice in writing – put an upstanding moral peacekeeper in charge of a war and have that war fought ethically – but it didn't really work like that. The war refused to conform to our ethics, and when we couldn't adapt to that… we died. Those of us who survived the first year – hell, the first _month_ – were… different because of it. Towards the end, there wasn't much of the _peacekeeper_ left in any of us."

The younger man swallows at that, staring at him uneasily and Obi-Wan sighs and looks away guiltily. It's something he's been thinking about for all too long – for the entire last _year_ maybe – but he'd never been able to word it to anyone, not even to himself. Now, throwing it at his own innocent face – hah.

Not quite as satisfying as he hoped it would be, regardless of all the times he'd wanted to go back in time just to _shake himself_ for being so damn ignorant and naïve.

"And how about right now?" the younger man asks, watching him warily. "At this time – will people object to cloned army of soldiers now? Palpatine is dead and Dooku is here – can we stop this now, before the war ever happens?"

Obi-Wan runs a hand over his beard and looks up at him again. "Well, right now the clone army would consist of babies and toddlers, so… if it comes to it, I have feeling the public won't feel too warm about the idea, no," he says. "First we need to get to Coruscant, report this all and hopefully do it in sensible enough way that we're believed."

"Right," the younger man says, still watching him. "One would think you'd be happier about this," he then says and looks at Anakin. "The chance to stop horrors of your past before they happen."

Obi-Wan almost laughs at that, running a hand over his eyes and smothering a weak little chuckle. Then he looks at Anakin, ten years of age, innocent and dead to the world.

He can still see the bodies strewn about the Jedi Temple – cut down by blaster and lightsaber burns. He can still hear Padmé, sobbing as he tells her. He can hear Yoda, telling him to go to Mustafar while he goes to face Palpatine. He doesn't even know if Yoda survived that fight. He doesn't know _anything_.

He will never know what becomes of Anakin – of Darth Vader as Sidious named him – later. What else he would do. What other horrors he would commit. He'd never know and maybe that's a relief but at the same time… would he ever stop wondering, imagining it? Sure, Anakin is an innocent kid here, as weirdly painful as _that_ is in and of itself, it's a relief. But somewhere, in another world, in another time line… he's anything but.

And some of that is Obi-Wan's fault.

"I really need some caff," Obi-Wan mutters with a sigh. His head aches with the lack of sleep and the stress and the lingering darkness – and the dubious, wary concern coming from the younger man isn't helping.

"Caff," the younger man repeats and then sighs. "I think I saw some in the drawers back there. I'll… get you some."

Obi-Wan looks up, a little surprised, but the younger man is already walking away, running a hand through his hair as he goes. Obi-Wan lets his eyes follow the motion and restrains the urge to run a hand through his own hair in mimicry – his hair is shorter now, nowhere near the mane his younger self still sports, but he remembers the feel of it – remembers the time and effort he put to the maintenance.

He was a bit of a rake when he was young, Obi-Wan thinks with strangest mixture of fondness and embarrassment. Not that he is that much older now, but… he feels as if he is. The younger man's horror at them being _only_ four years apart hadn't been without merit.

Sighing, Obi-Wan shakes his head and realises that he _is_ running a hand through his hair now. His hair is a little bit thinner compared to his younger self's tresses, he thinks. Nowhere near as luxurious, certainly, or as well maintained. There just… hadn't been the time. He doesn't even remember when or where he'd gotten his hair cut. It might've been a clone who cut it – it wouldn't be the first time.

Oddly uneasy, Obi-Wan glances at Anakin, who is still fast asleep, and then at the door to the bedroom. Still shut, and he tested the soundproofing before – their lowered voices wouldn't have carried. Even if they had, though, he's not sure it matters. That future wouldn't happen here, Force permitting, not with Palpatine dead.

Still, he might have given away little too much, even if it was only the broad idea of the thing and none of the useful details…

His younger self returns while Obi-Wan tries to figure out how a Sith might utilise the type of future information they have. He's holding two cups – only one of them is caff. "There was tea too," the younger man says. "But since you asked for caff…"

"Thanks," Obi-Wan says and accepts the cup. It's hot to the touch, comfortingly so. He shrugs his shoulders at the look the younger man gives him. "Not much tea in barracks."

"You actually slept in barracks?" the younger man asks, surprised.

"Space ships, mostly – had my own Star Destroyer and everything," Obi-Wan says and frowns, wondering what happened to the Negotiator. He'd left her on Utapau when the clones had turned on him – what would the Empire do with her, and others like it? The Jedi Cruisers they were called, after all – not terribly good publicity that, for the new Empire, using the ships of the _traitors_ they'd just executed…

"What is – no, I am not even going to ask," the young man says with a sigh and then, after moment of consideration, goes to kick off his boots before sitting down on the floor of the cockpit, his sock clad feet crossed in his lap easily. "Your future sounds horrifying and I am not sure I want to know more about it."

Obi-Wan eyes him with an arched eyebrow but says nothing, turning his eyes to the caff instead. It's pitch black and probably has no sugar either. Oh well, he thinks and sips it. "I'd ask you about yours, but I already know everything about it, so…" he trails off, looking at the younger man while other Obi-Wan Kenobi turns the tea cup in his hands.

"Hm," the younger man hums in agreement, frowning a little. "You know everything about me, don't you?" he says and shakes his head before taking a drink of the tea. He looks at Anakin, who's curled up in the chair sideways now and is leaning his cheek onto his own shoulder. "His Master is dead."

"Yes," Obi-Wan says, slow and wary.

"You know how it was for him – hell you know probably better than I do," the younger man says and gives him a look, pointed and meaningful. "You know where it might end – you know how to prevent it."

Obi-Wan faces it steadily and then he has to look down, at the cup. "I don't…" he trails away and shakes his head. "It's too early thinking about that."

"It's never too early," his younger self says.

"I killed the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, a man who as far as anyone knows, hadn't done anything wrong yet," Obi-Wan reminds him. "Sith or not, that will have repercussions. And we're men out of our own timelines, that will have even worse ones, depending on what the Jedi Council decides, what becomes of the Senate and whatever hearings will follow this. It doesn't matter what you and I think or want – or _don't_. It might not be up to us."

"He killed Knight Kenobi," the younger man says quietly. "It was justified."

"Any lawyer can talk around that. An accident entirely unrelated – and there is little proof. Anything could have happened," Obi-Wan says and leans in, leaning his elbows to his knees. The plastoid armour makes it a little uncomfortable, the plates grinding against each other – but whatever. "Our best bet is in getting Dooku to confess – and give up his fellow future Separatists and other people working with Palpatine."

"What about Kamino? The clone army is already on the way – that's proof enough of his future plans," the younger man points out.

"Yes, but the person who put in the order for the army… was a Jedi Master," Obi-Wan points out. "And that's what the Kaminoans will tell them – that the Jedi Order, the Jedi High Council even, send one of their own to order and pay for a private army that's all but genetically designed to follow a Jedi's orders. Think of how that looks, in light of another Jedi Master also killing a Supreme Chancellor of the Republic."

"… Ah,"  the younger man says and frowns.

"This might very well go very badly," Obi-Wan says and takes a drink of the caff. It's really terribly bitter – his younger self is still few dozen sleepless nights away from knowing how to make proper cup of caff for himself. "Every wrong doing needs a scapegoat. If it comes down to it… you let me assume all the blame."

"Why?" the younger man asks with suspicion. "I was there too, I helped. I'm not just going to pretend I had nothing to do with any of it –"

"I made the killing blow, and that was after disarming Palpatine," Obi-Wan says and then glances at Anakin. "And one of us should be around to look after him." And for that, this younger, infinitely kinder Master would be better. Obi-Wan doesn't think he could be tolerant of Anakin's failings, not like that, not anymore. And the kid, who has yet to really do anything wrong… really doesn't deserve it.

"You're being terribly pessimistic about this," the younger man murmurs, sounding displeased and uneasy. "I'm sure it won't go so badly. The Council will understand."

"The Council might," Obi-Wan says and shrugs somewhat fatalistically. "The dozens of Senate seats that were in Palpatine's pockets… they won't."


	4. Chapter 4

It's boring. It's so so _so_ boring. And that's kind of the worst thing.

Anakin sits with his back against the airlock door, and he knows his Master is behind it, but he's not, really. Obi-Wan is gone, there's nothing of him left – his Force presence is just… gone. It' wasn't even all that long ago that Anakin started sensing them, people's individual _feel_ in the Force, and he'd just started being able to track Obi-Wan wherever he went and now – now he's not there. Only he is – in the shape of two _fake ones_ that are up in the front of the ship, one keeping watch while the other sleeps, and – and it's wrong.

It's wrong that all of this is happening and _Anakin is bored_.

Sighing, he bangs his head back against the metal door, just hard enough to hear the echo.

He thought he'd have nightmares – but he didn't. The times he'd slept he'd done so without dreaming of anything – just vague sensations of discomfort and loneliness and darkness at most, but that might be just him projecting the present into what he thought were dreams. Centring on his anxieties, like Obi-Wan says.

Used to say.

Damnit.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Anakin tries to pull something from his mind to keep him pre-occupied on anything else other than the _lack_ of a familiar presence behind him. He can feel the people of the ship. Dooku in the bedroom, his presence static and intangible – meditating. The two Jedi in the front of the ship, who at this distance feel pretty much the same, their presences so similar and so close to each other that they sort of melt into each other. Only difference is that one of them is asleep, which has dimmed his presence into that soft hum of the resting – the other in the meanwhile is sharp and awake, shining brighter.

Anakin bangs the back of his head against the airlock door again and tries to think of something else. Saber katas – no, no, Obi-Wan taught them to him, he doesn't want to think about Obi-Wan. His room in the temple, with the stuff he has in there – he kind of misses his robes, its cold in here. His robes were second hand, soft with use – they used to be Obi-Wan's and – no. Crèche lessons maybe? He'd been on Galactic History lesson with kids four years younger than him and bored out of his mind – like he's now – when Obi-Wan had came to fetch him with a bright smile and good news – "I have a mission and the Council has agreed that I can bring you with me," and – no.

There's a swish of a door opening in front of him and Anakin opens his eyes to see Dooku step out. The old man glances at him, at the cockpit where one of the _other Obi-Wans_ glances back at him. But Dooku only steps briefly into the fresher, spends less than three minutes there and then, moments later, steps back into the bedroom. The door closes behind him with a hiss, and that's that.

Anakin bangs his head back, and there's a sigh in the front. "You're going to get a headache that way."

Anakin stares mutinously up at the ceiling for a moment, counting the grating there, and then he sits up with a sigh. He glances in through the window of the airlock – he can't see the bodies in there fully, just their legs where they lay pointed at the outer hatch. They're flying pretty steady – there hasn't been any change at all in their positions since the beginning.

Anakin thinks of Obi-Wan, being forced to lie beside the Sith who killed him, and then turns away and heads to the cockpit.

It's the armoured one awake, poking through a datapad. "I'm bored," Anakin informs him.

"I'm aware," the armoured man says without looking up. The other Obi-Wan is sitting in the co-pilot's seat, his head tilted back and his arms folded loosely across his chest. He somehow he looks bunches more comfortable than Anakin did, sleeping on the chair.

Anakin hesitates over the two chairs and then looks up and at hyperspace in front of them, where stars veer past them in streaks of light. "How long until we make it to Coruscant?"

"Another day or so," the armoured man says, flicking through the datapad. "It'll be late evening Coruscant time when we reach the planet."

"Right," Anakin answers and folds his arms, trying to get a little warmer. The cold of the airlock has stuck to his back and his shoulders feel stiff. "Then what?"

"Then we land at the Jedi temple, and report to the Jedi High Council," the man says, a little stiffer now, like he isn't _stiff enough_ as it is. "We will explain the situation as well as we can, we," he motions to the man asleep beside him. "Will explain our situation while you will explain what happened to you and hopefully Dooku will confess. And we go from there."

Anakin frowns. "And Obi-Wan?"

Now, finally, the man glances up – though not at him, just away from the datapad. He hesitates and then looks down again. "He will be transferred to the Halls of Healing where autopsy will be performed on him to determine the cause of death," he says. "Depending on the ensuing investigation, his body might be kept at the Temple morgue from anywhere from days to weeks. Eventually, there will be a Temple cremation."

Anakin closes his eyes at that, and behind his eyelids he can see Qui-Gon's pyre, as if it's still burning away in there, somewhere on Naboo, warming the room with its flames. "Are all Jedi cremated?" he asks and swallows. In Tatooine, dead bodies were… _recycled_. Which might mean anything from actual recycling to being harvested for organs to being eaten by various creatures – sometimes, by various _people_.

"When possible," the armoured one says. "In Coruscant, all dead are cremated – or they are shipped off world to be buried or entombed on other planets. There are no place for burials in Coruscant, and space burials are illegal in the Inner Core."

Anakin frowns at that and then – yeah, that makes sense. So many people and so many space ships – with space burials, ships would be crashing into dead bodies left right and centre. "In Tatooine the really rich get a sun burial," he says. "If they want it, I mean. Is that a thing in inner core?"

"Occasionally, but rarely, the very wealthy will do it. It's also illegal on most worlds, however – most systems do not like the idea of adding any quantity of foreign material to their local star mass. Over millennia and with billions of people… that can actually affect the star negatively."

Also makes sense, Anakin muses. "Why don't you like me?"

It's almost funny, how the man's hands clench around the datapad at that, but – it's not that funny actually, because he's right. It was kind of obvious there was something going on – the guy rarely even looks at him and every time he does Anakin gets the feeling he's done something wrong but… this confirms it. The armoured man really doesn't like him.

"It's… not that," the man says after a while, but he's speaking very carefully. Lying. "Some things came to pass in future that… I haven't had the time to meditate on them yet. It's not a reflection on you, I assure you."

"It is, though," Anakin says. "You can look at _Dooku_ and he turned into a Sith, right? But you can't look at me, so I'm worse than he is. Did I die?"

"… no. You didn't."

It's the other thing then. "I turned bad," Anakin says and sighs, looking up at the stars again. It's… not really that big of a surprise. Well, everyone always whispered that he might, that he could, even that he _would_ , that it's dangerous training such an old Padawan, that he's too emotional and get angry too easily and all that. Obi-Wan always said he wouldn't, that nothing is set in stone, that he chooses his own path, but… everyone whispered. And the Council _really_ didn't like him, always eying him suspiciously despite all of Obi-Wan's attempts to hide it.

Kind of sad he ends up proving them all right, despite everything.

"I don't want to turn bad," Anakin says, his voice weak even to his own ears.

There's movement and when Anakin looks down, the armoured man is looking up at him, his eyes searching. Anakin meets his eyes best he can, but he knows what he must look like. He's tired and bitter and angry and scared and it's all melted into this ball of hopelessness that has settled somewhere in his gut and is just sort of omnipresent now. He should meditate and release the feelings away into the Force but he doesn't know if he can.

He sucks at meditation and the only way he can release his emotions into the Force is when Obi-Wan is there too, guiding him through the meditation. And he's not there anymore. He will never be there. He will never guide Anakin through meditation again and that's – that's pretty much gonna guarantee he's going to go dark, isn't it? Without anyone to help him, he's going to go bad.

The armoured man is eying him and Anakin's eyes are tearing up now and – damn it. It would be fine if it was the other one – the other one is _nice_ – but this guy doesn't like him and Anakin doesn't want to cry in front of him.

Angry with himself, Anakin wipes at his eyes and turns to leave, to go back to the back of the ship. "Sorry –"

"Anakin," the man says – and it sounds terrible coming from his mouth. Anakin hesitates and the man sighs, setting the datapad down before swivelling the pilot's chair around and turning to face him.

"Turning to the Dark side is a choice," he says. "Resisting it is a choice. It's not something that just happens – falling to the Dark side is a process of choices you make when you give into your own insecurities and fears and hopelessness."

"And I did that," Anakin mutters. "Right." He'll get right onto that, shall he?

"It's a choice you can make now," the man says and he looks frustrated, running a hand through his hair. "I can't say I understand it – I hope I never will understand the Dark side. But as far as I can, the thing that made difference for you was trust and fear. In future, you stopped trusting – and you started being afraid instead."

Anakin gives him a look, mingled confusion and doubt. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks, but – somewhere in the back of his head Master Yoda is still going _fear is a path to the dark side…_

The armoured man looks uneasy, as he tries to explain. "You got too afraid to ask for help, to trust," he says. "What you feared, I don't know for sure – there were lot of things you rightfully could've been afraid of. But part of that was that I think you stopped trusting me – and the Jedi Order – to help you and started fearing our potential reaction to your problems instead. And so… you stopped asking for help and tried to deal with everything on your own. And it went badly for you."

Anakin sways where he stands a little, trying to make sense of that. "You were my Master, right?" he says. "Why wouldn't I trust you?"

"I wasn't your Master anymore – you were a fully fledged Knight, and General of your own Battalion," the armoured man says, shaking his head. "It's terribly complicated, but perhaps you thought you had to be responsible for yourself now – that you couldn't rely on me anymore, or on the Jedi Order."

Anakin doesn't get it, but he can tell the man is very carefully sidling around the actual reason. There's more to it he's not saying. "I think it might've been all the beating around the bush," he mutters and gives the man a look. "How can I trust you when you won't tell me the truth? Maybe he felt the same."

The armoured man leans back a little, as if from a physical blow, and for a moment the carefully tight expression cracks into a look of actual hurt. Then he reins his expression back in, uneasy but not openly revealing. "Maybe," he admits ruefully and sighs.

"Why did I really go bad?"

"I don't know, Anakin, I'm still trying to figure it out," the man says, watching him warily, sadly. "Years of Sith manipulation, perhaps. The Jedi Order not treating you how you ought to have been treated. My own treatment of you, perhaps. Many things, piled on top of each other. _I don't know_."

Anakin fiddles with the hem of his tunic for a moment, looking away and frowning. He'd like it to be simple – that there was just this one thing to watch out for, this one thing to avoid… but nothing works like that, does it? Jedi make it sound like things are really that simple, sometimes – like all you need to do is meditate and push your emotions away and that will fix _everything_ but no, it doesn't. It hasn't worked for him so far and it sounds like it never will.

The armoured man is still watching him, even though it looks a bit like he's looking into the sun and it's hurting his eyes, maybe. Anakin clears his throat and then lets his shoulders slump a little. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" the man asks, frowning a little.

"I don't know. All of it. For Falling to the Dark side, and all that," Anakin sighs. "I mean – I don't know why I did it and what I did to you when I went Dark but… I'm sorry I did. I'm sorry."

The armoured man's face is expressionless for a moment and then his expression twists almost into a grimace like maybe he's angry or really sad, like he wants to shout or cry or maybe both. Then he lowers his chin and runs hands over his face, hiding the twisted expression for a moment. His shoulders sort of quake and his hands are really tense, almost clawing at his hair Anakin notes uneasily, and shifts his weight awkwardly from one foot to another.

 _Shavit_ , Anakin thinks and then throws his arms around the man's shoulders. The white, stained plates of his armour feel weird under his arms and hands, unyielding and cold and harder than he thought they would. The man under the armour goes completely tense, his forehead against Anakin's chest and then he makes a noise of objection that comes out less like that and more like a sob.

It's just the one and then the man put a hand on Anakin's waist to push him back. "It's not your fault," he says and his voice is steady again – he's already turning away, not looking at Anakin. "This timeline is already different – chances are that will never happen to you. You shouldn't feel guilty for something you haven't done yet."

Anakin hesitates, digging his fingers under the white plates to keep his grip even as the man tries to push him away and looks at him with frown. Obi-Wan was never one for hugs either, always stiff and awkward and weird with them – but he never pushed Anakin away.

"But you think I am," Anakin says, his voice harder now. "Don't you?"

"I don't," the man says, and goes to turn the chair around.

"Yes you do – you can't even – just," Anakin shoves at him a little, pushing at the metal-hard plates of his shoulder. "You can't even look at me!"

There's a noise next to them while the armoured man leans back with a sigh, and Anakin glances at the other Obi-Wan, who's frowning, waking up. "What's –" he asks and looks at their way, blinking at Anakin who scowls and at the armoured _jerk_ who's running a hand over his face again. "Everything alright?"

"It's fine –"

"It's not!" Anakin snaps over him. "I turned Dark and he won't let me say sorry!"

The infinitely nicer version of Obi-Wan blinks at them and then straightens the co-pilot's chair, turning to them with a frown. "What's going on?" he asks and looks at the armoured one. "You _told_ him?"

The armoured man just sighs and shakes his head against his hand, pressing the heel of it between his eyes.

"You knew," Anakin says accusingly.

"Anakin," the long haired man says and then sighs, running a hand over his beard and looking between them. "Alright, let's just start from the beginning," he says. "You told him," he says again, accusingly, to the armoured one.

"I figured it out on my own, he just confirmed it," Anakin says and folds his arms, scowling at the armoured man who finally lowers his hand and looks up at him, looking weary and wary all at once. "And I wanted to say I'm sorry about it but he won't let me."

"Anakin, what happened in one version of a future isn't your fault," the long haired Obi-Wan says quickly. "This timeline is already very different – what that future version of you might have done is not your doing. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

The armoured one waves a hand like _told you so_ and Anakin scowls at him. "That's a heaping stinking load _bantha poodoo_ ," he says and points. "Because – because it was still a version of me and _he_ obviously thinks I'm at least a bit guilty because he can't even look at me right and he's a _kriffin sleemo shoopa e chu ta_ –"

"Language!" the long haired Obi-Wan says.

"Mostly huttese!" Anakin answers and throws his hands up and he's just angry and frustrated and it's really starting to get to him that these two have his Master's face but they aren't him and – it just hurts, that the armoured Hutt-spawn won't let him say sorry. "Who cares! I'm still right and he's _e chu ta_!"

"Anakin," the armoured man says, through gritted teeth. "It's not yours to apologise for."

"What does that even mean?!" Anakin demands.

"He – was a very different person from you. It doesn't mean anything coming from _you_ ," the man snaps and Anakin stops, taken aback a little, even hurt. The armoured man draws a frustrated breath and then sighs. "It wasn't you, Anakin."

Anakin opens his mouth but he can't get a sound through – he's just hurt and the armoured one is eying him like he's not – not really real? He's not sure, but it hurts too. The other Obi-Wan, the nice one with the hair, sighs and stands up, reaching for Anakin who automatically shrugs the touch off. "Anakin, what he means is that – you can't apologise for what other people do," he says. "What happened wasn't your fault."

"But it was me," Anakin says, his voice faint and confused.

"It – might have been, once," the man says carefully and crouches down beside him, reaching for his hands. "But you're not that person. Whatever will happen, you will probably never be that person."

"But –" Anakin starts and then stops when the armoured man looks up from him, his expression tightening. The other Obi-Wan looks up too and Anakin wipes at his leaking nose and turns around too.

Dooku is standing by the cockpit entrance, his arms folded and looking highly unimpressed with them. "As lovely as your shouting and wailing is to listen," the man says wryly. "None of you has any idea how a person goes Dark, do you?"

The nicer Obi-Wan stands up and puts a hand on Anakin's shoulder, pushing him back a little – this time Anakin doesn't shrug it off, not even when it puts him closer to the armoured _e chu ta_. "I don't think your addition to the discussion is necessary at this point," the long haired Obi-Wan says tightly.

"I feel it is. A person _falls_ to their dark urges and so they fall to the Dark side of the Force. But from what I heard, your little Padawan became a Sith," Dooku says. "That's something different entirely. You _fall_ to the dark side, yes. But you get corrupted, manipulated and _conditioned_ to becoming a Sith."

He looks between the two Obi-Wans almost disdainfully while Anakin wipes at his face, trying to get the wetness off. Then Dooku is looking at him – or he is, until the nicer Obi-Wan steps in the way.

"A Sith doesn't choose his apprentice on a whim. It's a process," Dooku says. "There's always two – there's _only_ two – so the Master chooses and conditions the apprentice to his precise, specific qualifications. It's a process that takes years, one of subtle manipulations until the apprentice _fits_ the right criteria. It's not something that happens on its own. If Skywalker became a Sith, it was Sidious' doing, all of it. He might've became _Dark_ all on his own, but to become a Sith… that takes outside influence."

He scoffs at them all for a moment, looking from one Obi-Wan to the other and then turning on his heels. "You killed the Master. That line is dead now. No one's becoming Sith again," he says and heads back to the bedroom. "So please, cease your incessant _wailing_."

The door slides open ahead of him and shut behind him, and then it's just three of them again, left in the silence at his wake.

Anakin scowls after him while the two Obi-Wan's share a look over his head. "What does that mean?" Anakin finally asks. "It wasn't me?"

"Oh Anakin, no," the long haired Obi-Wan says and hugs him. "It wasn't you."

Anakin frowns against his chest and then turns to look at the other one, the armoured one, who looks back, his face impassive for a moment. Then he sighs and shakes his head and leans in a bit, leaning one elbow to his plate covered knee. With the other hand he reaches out, awkward and uneasy, to touch Anakin's limp hand.

"It wasn't you," he says – and he still looks hurt inside, but – but now Anakin sees it. It's not really him causing that hurt.

"But I look like him," Anakin guesses. "And that's awkward."

The armoured man arches his eyebrows and then lets out a sound that's almost a laugh. "Yes," he agrees tiredly. "I'm sorry. It'll probably take me a bit to get used to it."

Anakin nods against the other Obi-Wan's tabards and sighs. He still smells like his Master and it still hurts. All of this hurts. But it's a little – well not really better, but it's not so much _worse_ now. "Does it hurt to call me Anakin?" he asks then weakly. "Because I can't call you Obi-Wan."

"A little bit," the armoured man admits and takes his hand in his, winding their fingers together. His palm is big and warm and calloused, his fingers strong around Anakin's. "But that's not your fault."

"You could call me Ani instead," Anakin says – even though he told Obi-Wan not to, because it was childish and the other initiates and Padawans already made fun of him… and it was what Qui-Gon called him. So he'd probably told the same to these two Obi-Wans, in some timeline.

"It's alright, Anakin," the armoured man says and squeezes his hand gently.

The longer haired one releases him finally and runs and comforting hand over his shoulder. "It's not your fault, Anakin," he says. "Alright? You don't have to change one bit for us."

"Tch," Anakin answers, even as he relaxes a bit. He wouldn't have minded becoming Ani, really, but he isn't sure he would've liked it either. He should do the same, though – call them Obi-Wan. Except… except there's two of them and he can't, he just _can't_ , not when Obi-Wan's dead – they are _not replacing_ his Master. "I'm going to call you Obi," he decides and then narrows his eyes at the armoured one. "And you can be _Wan_."

They stare at him with surprise. "I guess that… might work?" the long haired one, Obi, says with a slightly confused frown.

"Why am I _Wan_ and why does it sound like you're trying to make it an insult?" the armoured one, Wan, asks with a slightly taken-aback look on his face.

"Because I don't like you as much," Anakin says with harrumph.

Obi chuckles a little awkwardly at that and runs a hand over his hair while Wan shakes his head. "Alright, Wan it is. I guess it works just as well for differentiation, and we do need different names before long…" he muses and eyes Obi. "Unless you mind?"

"No, its fine by me," the long haired man says with a little laugh and looks down at Anakin. "Alright now, Anakin?" he asks.

Anakin hesitates, glancing at Wan and then away. "I guess," he says. "Still… I'm sorry that one version of me went Dark," he says. "I don't want to go Dark."

"Then _don't_ ," Wan says simply. "Make the decision not to and stick to it."

Obi makes a sound of objection but Anakin thinks about it, watching Wan's expression. He means it; he means it _really seriously_ , too. Make a decision and stick to it – for the rest of his life. Decide to stay Light, and do it.

Do or do not – there is no try.

"I will," Anakin says and then again, stronger, " _I will_."

Wan eyes him seriously and then nods. "I believe you."

Anakin nods and takes a deep breath and then nods again. Just watch him, Sith Anakin from another timeline – he would prove him and Wan and everyone else wrong. Just kriffin' _watch him_. "I'm," he says firmly, "going to meditate now."

It's probably unusual for both of their versions of Anakins, seeing as how both Obi and Wan give him the exact same a slightly surprised eyebrow. "Alright," Obi laughs. "Do you want some company?"

Anakin hesitates and then looks at Wan, who arches his other eyebrow as well. The other Anakin had stopped asking help and that's where he went wrong, right? Okay then. "Yes," he says firmly. "Please."

Obi chuckles. "Alright," he says and looks at Wan. "Joining us?"

Wan sighs and shakes his head, turning away. "Someone needs to keep watch."

"The ship is on autopilot and we're still day away from Coruscant," Obi says and reaches over to give his shoulder a slight tug. "Come on. I can feel how badly you need it."

Wan holds against it for a moment and then – gives in, his shoulders relaxing a little. "I'm going to sit right in front of Dooku's door," he mutters stands up while Obi snorts at him, looking away to hide the amusement and Anakin looks between them.

Obi and Wan. Yeah he can learn to live with that – even if they will never, ever replace his actual Master and he will never be able to think of them as "Obi-Wan Kenobi"... Maybe this won't be so terribly bad after all.

Except maybe it is anyway because Obi-Wan is still dead and none of this will ever fix that. Anakin can stay Light all his life – he can become the best damn Jedi in the galaxy, and his Master will still be dead, won't he?

Shaking his head, Anakin sits down on the cockpit floor with his feet crossed in his lap while Obi sits beside him – and Wan goes, as promised, to sit with his back almost pressed against Dooku's door, keeping watch on the man even in meditation. While Wan settles down in clatter of armour plates, Obi looks to Anakin.

"Go on," the long haired man says, smiling quietly. "Begin."

Anakin nods, trying to hide his sudden burst of nerves, and closes his eyes. Obi follows him, his presence in the Force smoothing down to an even, soft hum. There's an edge to it that Anakin doesn't know, though – a hint of wariness as Obi waits. For Anakin?

No. For Wan – who after a moment of hesitation joins the meditation with all the subtlety and grace of a magnet snapping into place. It's almost audible, how Obi and Wan click into places like two pieces of a puzzle.

' _Oh_ ,' someone thinks, while Anakin tries to figure out what the hell just happened. ' _Well... damn_.'

'... _oh kriffin sithspit_ ,' someone else thinks.

And Anakin is stuck between them – tangled in the Force Bond between two equal, identical pillars of Force.


	5. Chapter 5

Obi-Wan has had precisely two Force bonds and both have been training bonds.

His and Qui-Gon's had grown slowly between them, a more or less natural progression of a somewhat reluctant Master and an over eager student coming to terms with each other and the fact that they'd be travelling along the same paths until unforeseeable future. Twelve years it had been there, twelve sometimes all too long and yet all too short years, which cut short all too abruptly.

His and Anakin's bond had been stronger – and weaker at the same time. It had taken longer to build and it had never reached that level of ease and harmony that Qui-Gon's bond had had, where they could share their thoughts without ever saying a word and where they could tell each other emotional state without so much as looking at each other. But, though overall weaker, the bond with Anakin had been much more emotional. Never mind a tad obsessive and perhaps even possessive at times.

Anakin, when he _had_ something, tended to have hard time letting that something go. His history of never really owning anything made him cherish the things he did own to a jealous degree that Obi-Wan had done his best to train him out of... but, judging by what he'd learned from his older self, from Wan, he probably hadn't managed as well as he'd hoped.

Both bonds had been in their own way very average Force Bonds between a Master and a Padawan, in the end. Different from each other – different from other similar Force Bonds too, such things were always dependant on the individuals joined together after all, and everyone was unique in the Force… but overall not that unusual.

This, _this_ is unusual.

Wan is still there, in his head – hours and hours after that initial _snap_ of their minds joining together and Obi-Wan is starting to get the feeling that he isn't about to actually leave. He's not even just a background hum like Qui-Gon had been, not a distant presence like Anakin was – no, he's just… _there_. In his head. Seemingly permanently.

He's also cursing himself a lot.

' _Should've kriffin know_ ,' he thinks every so often while frustratedly fiddling with the ship controls. ' _Should've taken time to rest. Idiotic thing to do, meditating with someone this close – why did I think that was ever a good idea_.' And then he thinks quite deal of, ' _Don't think about it, don't think about it_ –'

And then Obi-Wan would get glimpses of whatever he's trying not to think about – faces, moments, sights. Anakin, mostly – in armour, on a ship's bridge, with a lightsaber in hand, taking down droids and people, standing beside him and grinning, seen in hologram kneeling at the feet of Palpatine and accepting the name _Darth Vader_ from him.

Obi-Wan doesn't know what he lets into the bond, probably quite a deal judging by the looks Wan occasionally throws his way. While Wan is concentrating onto the horrors of the future, Obi-Wan's mind keeps circling back to Qui-Gon, to the frayed edges of that bond. Having a Force Bond severed by death is not exactly the most optimal way to end such things, and occasionally he still feels the lack of his presence. Wan hadn't taken that place in his mind – nor had he taken Anakin's place, not really.

This, whatever it is, isn't a training bond. It's more like someone opened up a door between their heads and Obi-Wan thinks that if he just _pushes_ a little –

"Don't," Wan snaps at him and Obi-Wan leans back, running a hand over his face.

"We need to figure out how to shield ourselves," Obi-Wan mutters, a little shaky. There's a space battle happening somewhere in Wan's mind, a glorious, terrible display of explosions over the curving surface of a planet and _so many people died there_ , thousands of clones gone as the Star Destroyers blew, and it doesn't even matter, none of it _seems to matter_.

' _What we need is to sever the bond_ ,' Wan thinks in frustration and keeps his eyes up ahead even while thinking that their Force presences are pretty much the same, they are the same person – this isn't even a bond in the traditional sense, this is more about them being the same person. Has there ever been incident like this? He doubts it. Twins come closest and you can't sever a twin bond – what hope do they have of severing _this_?

The _dismay_ he thinks it with is mildly insulting and off putting and Obi-Wan frowns – which then makes Wan glance at him and then away, radiating guilt and irritation and hopeless grief for him.

' _Sorry_ ,' Wan thinks, concentrating onto the word so that he doesn't think anything else.

Obi-Wan sighs and waves a hand. Their mental shields are shot to hell and the attempts at meditation just made it worse – neither of them has much of a filter, and Wan has more to be wary about. It makes sense.

' _I understand_ ,' he thinks. At least he hopes he does, and it's not just that Wan genuinely doesn't like him very much – which would be a rather odd thing to do, disliking your own past version.

Wan almost winces – not physically but mentally. Well, that is more than a bit disheartening, isn't it? Obi-Wan sighs and runs a hand over his face again and tries to press his own thoughts back to himself, to keep them from spilling from his head to Wan's, but it probably doesn't work because he thinks, ' _Well screw you too then_ ,' and Wan lets out a sound that's almost a laugh, but carries with it the emotion of banging your head against a wall.

Obi-Wan didn't even know there was an emotion for that, but apparently Wan knows it very well.

Behind them, Anakin clears his throat. "You've gone all nonverbal again," he points out, his voice a little tense.

"Sorry, Anakin," they say together, and wince together immediately after.

Anakin lets out a disgusted noise. He's sitting on the floor at the edge of the cockpit, hugging his knees and glaring at them – and he's there too, in their heads, back in his place at the end of their Master/Padawan bonds. Wan's had been frayed by time and distance and the slow _withdraw_ of his student as they drifted apart while Obi-Wan's is still going strong – and Anakin had just slotted into his place like he belonged there.

And he doesn't like it one bit. Though his emotions are nowhere near the crystal clarity of Wan's stray thoughts as they drift past every barrier they try to erect and right into the forefront of Obi-Wan's mind, Anakin's emotions are a distant background noise, there but easy to ignore.

"You should concentrate on the damn ship," the boy mutters.

"Right," Wan answers, his hands clenching and he looks up. Obi-Wan does the same – maybe if they're both concentrated on the same task, it's easier to avoid their thoughts straying.

They're just little short of dropping out of hyperspace and coming up on Coruscant. They'd need to call ahead to the Jedi Temple, there'd need to be a Master from the High Council there to receive them and their reports – after that, healers no doubt, for all of them.

' _We will have to deal with Palpatine first_ ,' Wan thinks. ' _Concentrate onto the ship, please_.'

Obi-Wan feels a spark of irritation at that – as if Wan's mind isn't any more prone to wandering – but he pushes it away and concentrates onto the co-pilot's tasks, as few as those as there are in the skiff, which is designed for one pilot, really.

The stars streak past and then they slow as they finally, after four days and all too many revelations, they're at what passes for a home. Coruscant looks exactly the same as the last he'd seen – and little like how Wan had seen it.

Ever since the Siege of Coruscant – _Coruscant had been besieged, what_?! – there had been gunships and Star Destroyers employed on orbit at all times. There also had been an ongoing cleaning operation to clear away the thousands of tons of deadly debris of hundreds of destroyed ships from orbit as well, so the Coruscant orbit had been abuzz with warships and droids and cargo ships, doing what they could to clean the space again.

Obi-Wan glances at Wan warily and gets a brief image of going down on the planet – _crashing_ on Coruscant – while riding a broken half of an over kilometre long dreadnought warship. Then Wan takes a breath and the memory fades and they're looking at Coruscant as it is now. Peaceful, half lit by the local star, half lit by its own, endless city sprawl.

Obi-Wan takes a breath and glances at the comms. Wan glances at him and Obi-Wan knows what he wants him to do. Obi-Wan nods his head to the silent plan and then reaches to activate the comms, audio only, keyed into the Jedi Temple channels.

"Calling Jedi Temple, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi," he starts and rattles off his identification digits – their identification now, isn't it. "I have arrived on orbit with Anakin Skywalker and two guests and I need to contact the Jedi High Council for initial report before landing. Please advice."

It takes a moment and then a female voice answers. " _Knight Kenobi, it's good to hear your voice – we've been worried for you_ ," the Jedi in communications answers. " _I am contacting the High Council chambers now, please hold."_

Obi-Wan leans in over the comms unit and waits while Wan goes through prep for atmospheric entry. Anakin has stood up from the floor and is now coming closer – while down in the back of the ship, the door to the bedroom swishes open as Dooku steps out. Wan glances back at him and for a moment Obi-Wan thinks he can see through the other's eyes, and feel the tightening around his eyes as he narrows his eyes warningly – Dooku stays at the edge of the cockpit, stays silent –

" _Knight Kenobi_ ," a male voice comes through the comms – Master Windu. " _It's been seven days; we'd thought we lost you. Report_."

Obi-Wan closes his eyes and tries to block Wan out. "Unfortunately I can't give a full report, I'm not privy to all the details, but there was an incident with a Sith," he says, and lets the very honest weariness over this whole situation bleed into his voice. "And I regret to inform you that we have two bodies on board the ship – one of them the – the Supreme Chancellor."

"… **_what_**?"

Obi-Wan breathes. "Sir, Chancellor Palpatine is on board the ship – he was behind our, ah, unfortunate absence," he says and glances back at Anakin who is frowning. "Sir, I have reason to believe he was the Sith Master."

There is a silent, long and terribly telling. Wan runs a hand over his face and for a moment Obi-Wan sees the council chambers in his – or rather Wan's – mind's eye. He imagines it with perfect clarity, the High Councillors exchanging looks of suppressed surprise and distrust and confusion. Mace – so it's _Mace_ in the future? – would be distrustful while Yoda would frown and promote patience. Plo Koon, if there, would withdraw from the discussion until further evidence, Ki-Adi would be suspicious but open…

And Wan imagines this all not from the place in front of the Council, but rather amidst them. Apparently he became part of the Jedi High Council.

' _Not the time_ ,' the elder man thinks, rubbing at his forehead, while Obi-Wan gives him an arched eyebrow.

The comms unit crackles. " _How did the Chancellor die_?" Master Windu asks, his voice tight.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. "In a lightsaber duel," he says and shakes his head. "Sir, this would really be best reported in person. I have Anakin here with me, and two others who may… shed some more light to the matter," he adds and glances backwards at Dooku.

Dooku arches an eyebrow at him and folds his arms, but says nothing.

Another moment of silence from the comms and then, " _Land on landing pad four_ ," Master Windu says. " _There will be delegation out to meet you. Stay on the ship and wait them to enter_."

"Be advised that we're on board the Supreme Chancellor's personal star skiff – and due to the limitations of the ship the two bodies were stored in the airlock for preservation," Obi-Wan answers.

" _Acknowledged. Begin landing procedures_."

Wan has already started them and with a shuddering sigh Obi-Wan shuts down the comms unit. In front of them the planet pans slowly and fills the view port as Wan starts taking them down and into the atmosphere.

"This is going to go splendidly," Dooku mutters behind them – understatement of the galaxy.

* * *

 

The first person to enter the skiff is, unsurprisingly, Grand Master Yoda, who is followed by eight masked Temple Guards, carrying between them two gurneys. While the rest of them wait behind the closed airlock door, Yoda examines the bodies briefly – first the Supreme Chancellor, and then… then Knight Kenobi.

Next thing, he has a lightsaber in hand, and while half of the Temple Guards quickly move to remove the bodies from the ship, the other four take out their light pikes, and prepare for battle.

"Your weapons you will lay down," Yoda says, before opening the door. "Resist you will not."

"Our lightsabers are on the floor by the airlock – ours, Knight Kenobi's, Count Dooku's and the Chancellor's," Wan answers while Obi-Wan rests a comforting hand on Anakin's shoulder and Dooku leans onto the cockpit doorway, looking irritated. "Beyond those, we're not armed."

"Hrm," Yoda answers. "Odd. Count Dooku, you say. And much like Obi-Wan Kenobi you sound like. Stay back – enter we will."

They stay well away from the airlock door as it swishes open. While the Temple Guards quickly move to remove the weapons. Yoda, on other hand, looks up at them over the glow of his lightsaber. His face remains alert as he looks from one face to the other, but the twitch of his ears gives away the surprise and alarm as he sees Dooku, Anakin – and then Obi-Wan and still heavily armoured Wan.

"There was a… incident," Wan says while holding his hands where they're visible. "Of true Qui-Gonian proportions."

Dooku makes a sound at that, a surprised little chuckle and Yoda's ears twitch a little at that. "See that I do," he says still sounding wary. "Padawan mine," he nods to Dooku.

"Master Yoda," Dooku sighs.

"How come you be here?"

"It's… a lengthy story, I'm afraid, and best told in order," Dooku says and glances at him and Wan, his eyes narrowed. "To put it shortly – I surrendered to these two during their escape from a prison on Serenno."

Yoda eyes them silently for a moment and then nods slowly, even more suspicious now, and then looks at Wan and Obi-Wan. Then, ignoring them, he looks at Anakin. "Padawan Skywalker – alright are you?"

"About as good as I can be," Anakin answers and looks past Yoda. "Can I go with Obi-Wan?"

"… soon," Yoda says, narrowing his eyes a little. "Harm you have these two?"

Anakin blinks and then Obi-Wan realises he's clenching his fingers into the fabric at the boy's shoulder and quickly releases him even as Anakin shakes his head. "No, that was just Palpatine, chaining me to the wall," he says. "Obi and Wan freed me. I guess they've been looking after me since."

' _For given value of looking after_ ,' he thinks and Obi-Wan shares a look at Wan.

Yoda nods slowly at that and then finally addresses the actual bantha in the room. "Obi-Wan Kenobi you look like, the pair of you – but older," he says suspicious. "And yet Obi-Wan Kenobi I just saw, dead in the airlock. Explain this you will."

If only it was as simple as just explaining it. Obi-Wan has no idea where to even begin making sense of it all in his head – but explain it to someone else, who didn't have the benefit of being there and having the evidence?

"Sith magic," Wan says and straightens his back a little, glancing at Dooku. "We don't know the details fully but apparently Palpatine accidentally summoned us as the _potential_ of Knight Kenobi. I'm fourteen years from his future – he's from roughly ten years," he motions at Obi-Wan. "Knight Kenobi was dying or already dead by the time we emerged – we don't know for sure. There was a Sith Master to deal with. By the time we attempted resuscitation on Knight Kenobi, he was already gone."

Anakin makes a noise at that, a quiet, pained whine.

"Hmm," Yoda says and finally puts his lightsaber away. "Go with the Temple Guard you will, and report to the Jedi high council you will. Skywalker, with me you will come," he adds and motions with his hand. "Come, youngling."

Anakin hurries forward and Obi-Wan smothers the urge to follow and stays at Wan's side instead, uneasy at the feel of their – Padawan? – being led away. He glances at Wan who shakes his head subtly and looks ahead again. Then Wan steps ahead, his head held high. In the light of the setting Coruscanti sun, his armour gleams with scrapes and wear and tear and he looks like warrior, entering a war zone, ready for anything.

This is going to be a long ordeal, Obi-Wan thinks wearily, and follows him.

* * *

 

Anakin and Dooku are probably heard first – at least that's what Wan thinks will happen, seeing as they are more trustworthy sources of information to the Council currently. The two of them are an unknown, alien entity, and they would be heard only after the bodies have been examined, the lightsabers tested, and the other two witnesses have been heard.

And Force only knows what Dooku is telling them.

"You think he'd lie?" Obi-Wan asks quietly as they sit across from each other in one of the Temple's rarely used holding cells. There is a pair of Temple Guards across from the cell, in other side of a force field, and there is no place to hide in the little cell – everything is right in their view.

"I don't know how far along he is yet," Wan answers, and thinks of what he knows of Dooku's fall to the Dark side and to the Sith. Even in Obi-Wan's time everyone knew that Dooku had lost his faith with the Jedi Order and that's why he'd left it behind, becoming one of the Lost Twenty – but it seems like no one knew the full truth.

No one knew interest Dooku had developed  for the Dark side. How the actual fall in with Palpatine had happened, even Wan doesn't know, but he can imagine very well Palpatine approaching the former Jedi Master and offering him all sorts of forbidden Sith secrets to slake his thirst for power and knowledge. Dooku was ambitious man with political leanings, and perfect for Sidious' galactic war game, after all.

And Dooku had been in with the Sith by the time the Clone Army had begun – as far as the Jedi Order knew, he'd killed Sifo Dyas for it, to put Sidious' finishing touches on the clones. The inhibitor chips which –

"Stop," Obi-Wan speaks out loud as he glimpses the _void_ in Wan's head – the feel of Jedi dying in mass, and the following, ringing absence their deaths left behind. Wan had only remained in the future for a little while after that terrible event, but… it still resonated horribly in his heart. Somewhere for Wan, the Jedi are still being killed by their previously loyal, trusted troops and the betrayal of it echoes like a death knell.

"Sorry," Wan says out loud and leans his head back. "I – really hoped to spare you from that."

Obi-Wan shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. "I can handle it," he mutters.

"I know you can," the other sighs. He just wished he didn't have to – that some version of him wouldn't have to.

Obi-Wan looks at him and then looks away. He'd wondered, in horror, how Wan could be so different from him but – but now he knows, and, yes… he too wishes he didn't. There's so much death in Wan's head, so many losses, so many moments of suppressed grief that it's become a habit for him, like a suit of clothes he pulled on, to press on and _suppress_ his hurt. No wonder the man feels so terribly weary all the time.

"What happens if Dooku lies to them?" Obi-Wan asks, looking away.

"They believe him or they don't. We'll be questioned in either case," Wan answers and closes his eyes, leaning his head back. "You need to prepare yourself for the eventuality that they _won't_ believe us."

Obi-Wan sighs and nods. He wouldn't believe them, probably, even if they hadn't arrived with a _dead Supreme Chancellor_. Hell, the evidence is stacked higher against them than for them, is it? How would it look from the outside, really?

The strangeness of the situation works to their advantage, somewhat, Wan thinks. No one would do something like this to try and cover up an assassination, and it's too ludicrous to be any sort of… stunt for any reasonable purpose. If their goal was to simply kill the Supreme Chancellor, why the play with doubles, why Dooku, why Anakin – why all of it? It makes no sense, and thus…

Wan breathes in and out and then thinks of the process of investigation. The bodies would be examined – the Supreme Chancellor couldn't be autopsied immediately, he's too high standing, there needed to be proper procedure, but there'd be a visual examination to determine cause of death. Hopefully the cause of Knight Kenobi's death would clarify things, though Wan doesn't know for sure it would. It might look like he simply had a heart attack, after all, which wouldn't work well for them.

Dooku would be questioned first – he is still a respected former Jedi Master from the High Council after all, his word would be trusted above others. After him, Anakin would be questioned for what happened – and medically examined for the signs of captivity. Thankfully, the kid doesn't know healing trance yet, so he would still have bruises.

"Thankfully?" Obi-Wan repeats faintly. What a horribly cold way of thinking it. It makes sense, and this is pretty much how he figured it would go down too – he might not have a High Councillor's view on the matter, but he is an active Jedi Knight and Master, he's gone through plenty of investigations. Still – to see a benefit in a child's inability to heal themselves…

Wan sighs and gives him a look and then continues the train of thought. Anakin would report what happened, which would be collaborated by his injuries and hopefully by the signs of torture on Knight Kenobi's body. After that, the council would deliberate on the matter a bit, come up with theories and potential causes, choose what they believe according their personal beliefs…

And then the two of them would be called in for questioning.

Obi-Wan frowns. "Choose what they believe?" he asks slowly. Wasn't the council supposed to be neutral during questioning?

Wan almost smiles, not opening his eyes. ' _Secret of the Jedi High Council – it's selected of members with varying personal views, which support different forms of deduction and reasoning_ ,' he answers silently. ' _So that when an unusual incident arises, there will be multiple views, theories and ideas about it, which might be discussed from varying sides._ '

It's supposed to be that way, anyway. Multitude of opinions serving one whole, so that they didn't get stuck in their way of thinking. However… that's just in theory.

In more recent years and decades the selection process for the Jedi High Council had gotten more and more homogenous, adding in people with more compatible world views, with less differentiating opinions. One of the many reasons for their downfall, probably – they'd gotten inbred in their views and ideals.

Dooku, ironically, had been their last, honest attempt to add in a truly different voice to the Council – and look how well had that gone.

Obi-Wan lifts his head a little and looks at him with a frown. Wan opens his eyes and straightens his neck. "Council History," the man shrugs. "When you join the Jedi High Council you tend to be expected to know what it actually means and stands for."

"I see," Obi-Wan says somewhat warily. Of course it makes sense that there is more going behind the scenes of the Jedi High Council rather than sitting on cushioned seats and assigning missions, but somehow he hadn't realised just how… cerebral it really was. Or used to be?

Obi-Wan rubs at his forehead, looking away. "Your thoughts are starting to confuse me," he murmurs. "We really need shields."

Wan sighs and thinks for a moment of a terrible, terrible potential, of what might be happening here – and then he shies away from it, like Obi-Wan has.

Their minds aren't just connected. They're so similar that Force considers them one and the same. They're all but blending together. And how did it go again, about time travel, about two of the same object occupying the same space in timeline?

Obi-Wan shudders and then looks up as someone steps in front of the force field. A Temple Guard.

"You will come with us," the Temple Guard says with a distorted voice, motioning at Obi-Wan. "You," they motion to Wan, "will stay here and wait for your questioning at later time."

Obi-Wan shares a look with his counterpart and then Wan nods. "As you will," he says and folds his arms while Obi-Wan stands up. The unease is a living, writing current between them - and as the force field is deactivated and Obi-Wan steps out, it… stretches.

Five meters from Wan and Obi-Wan can already feel the _drain_ in his chest, like there's a hole pored right through him and it's sucking the air out of his lungs. Ten meters and it blooms into a discomfort, even into pain. Fifteen and he has to swallow against the very real, almost physical _ache_ , and his steps start getting difficult, sluggish, even clumsy.

Twenty meters – and he can go no further. He tries, but he just can't – his body refuses to move against the pain. It's the living Force in his own body – it's like a band between him and Wan and it can stretch no further.

"Is there something wrong?" the Temple Guard asks, stopping to look at him while Obi-Wan wavers, clutching at his chest.

"I can't go," Obi-Wan says, as their silent fear is thusly confirmed.

"You have been called in for questioning by the Jedi High Council," the Temple Guard says. "It is not a request you can simply refuse under the circumstances."

Obi-Wan swallows and bows his head. Then he turns to look back – and it doesn't surprise him in the least to find Wan on his feet and as close to the force field as he can get. Unlike Obi-Wan, the General isn't clutching to his chest in pain – but judging by the expression on his face, he feels the ache too.

"We're bonded in some form of unshielded Life Bond," Obi-Wan says wearily while Wan gives him a look of wretched regret and guilt. "I'm sorry. I can't go any further without him."


	6. Chapter 6

It's not the worst way Obi-Wan Kenobi has presented himself to the Jedi Council. There's been times he'd reported still covered in unspeakable muck from planet so and so, once when he'd reported while slung over Anakin's shoulders because 70% of his body was paralysed, he'd reported more than once while lying on a gurney and once while painted in various shades of neon yellow. But presenting himself to the Jedi High Council because he'd accidentally gotten himself Force bound to someone else, even if that someone is technically himself…

It almost makes Obi-Wan miss the Clone Wars, and the collection of _strangest reports made by Jedi Generals_ that the clones not so surreptitiously kept. Cody had held top place for months with the hologram recording of Obi-Wan covered in the innards of that… pink monstrosity from Muunilinst.

"Kenobi," Windu says flatly, while Obi-Wan and his younger counterpart stand in front of them, Obi-Wan resigned and the recently dubbed _Obi_ looking vaguely embarrassed. "I believe we only asked for the younger of the two."

The words are aimed at the Temple Guard who bows their head. "Apologies, Master of the Order, but they claim to be tied in an unshielded Force bond and showed pain when separated. I could not in good consciousness force them apart."

Obi-Wan – or rather Wan as he supposes he should get used to thinking himself as – folds his arms across his chest and looks at the Council. Mace Windu, Yoda, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Yaddle, Yarael Poof, Even Piell, Oppo Rancisis, Saesee Tiin, Coleman Trebor, Eeth Koth, Adi Gallia and Depa Bilapa. All good Jedi Masters, most of whom became good Jedi Generals eventually – most of whom had eventually died. First Yarael Poof was lost and was replaced by Plo Koon, then Coleman Trebor whom Obi-Wan himself replaced, then Eeth Koth replaced by Shaak Ti, then Adi Gallia who was replaced by Kit Fisto, then Even Piell…

Obi-Wan looks away. Well over half of the Council had been replaced by the end of the Clone War – and the rest got killed when the clones turned on them, except for him and Yoda. It's surprisingly painful to see them all now, alive and strong and seemingly at the height of their strength.

"Unshielded Life Bond," Saesee Tiin asks and leans in a little. "That's a bold and worrying thing to claim."

Obi-Wan glances at his younger counterpart, who folds his hands in front of him, obviously missing his outer cloak. For years, Obi-Wan recalls gaining some comfort in the long, plentiful fabric and how it hid his body language when under the close scrutiny of the Council.

"We are in essence the same person," the younger one says. "There has been a current of Force between us ever since we emerged but when we attempted to meditate on our way here, we…" he searches for a word and sighs. "Clicked. And haven't quite been able to _unclick_ since."

"Hm. We will have to have this confirmed by a healer, you understand," Depa Bilapa says warningly.

"That's fine," Obi says and looks at Obi-Wan – or rather Wan, as he already thinks of him. The whole matter of names is getting even more confusing as their minds bend closer together, and the distinction between which is thinking which thoughts gets more messy. "I daresay we need it," Obi muses.

Wan nods in agreement and looks at the Council. "I understand you wanted to question us separately," he says. "I can wait out in the hall if necessary, but it will be difficult for both of us – and it won't keep me from knowing exactly what is being discussed behind the closed doors," he says apologetically. "I suspect we can already hear through each other's ears."

"Worrying that is," Yoda says. "But no, necessary it is not to separate you now that both of you here are. Question you two together we will and after that to the healers you will go."

Both Obi and Wan bow at that. "Thank you for your consideration, Master," Obi says beside Wan.

"Right," Mace Windu says and leans back in his seat. "We have heard Anakin Skywalker, we have heard former-Master Dooku – the bodies you brought with you have been examined, as have your lightsabers. Now we want to hear the course of events from your point of view. Starting with the one on the right – how did you come to be here?"

He's motioning at Obi, who takes a deep breath and launches into report. "From my perspective I was in Coruscant when the summoning grabbed me – just recently returned from a mission to Cato Nemoidia and looking forward to some downtime. The precise moment when I moved from then to now, from the Jedi Temple to the prison in Serenno is a blur, I cannot precisely recall how it happened or what it felt like, but suddenly I found myself with my back against a wall with this man," he motions at Wan, "beside me and knight Kenobi falling in front of me."

He then details what happened after – them catching Kenobi and Wan launching into attack against Sidious. There are some frowns from the Jedi Council at that thrown Wan's direction – some narrowed eyes. Obi is factual and brutally honest about the report, he leaves nothing out – and it does not paint Wan in the kindest of lights. He had attacked Palpatine with little provocation – and killed him directly _after_ disarming him.

Wan can't really bring himself to care about the censure he's being given – the upside of Palpatine _dead_ good fourteen years early far outstrips the downside of Jedi High Council's judgement.

Obi continues his report how he stayed with Anakin while Wan scouted ahead and how they made their escape, capturing Dooku on their way out though at that time Obi hadn't been sure exactly _why_ he'd done so, not until later, on board the ship, when Wan and Dooku had discussed the future in length.

"In your time, there is no war yet?" Ki-Adi says once Obi is finished with his report of their escape.

"No, Master," Obi answers. "But as Wan has told and – shown – me more, I have come to realise that… it wasn't far off. The political situation was tense and the Separatists, who became the Confederation of Independent Systems in his time, were already in motion in my time and it is known that they had access to the technology of producing droid armies. It's… very possible that the war was only behind the corner."

Wan closes his eyes briefly. All the war had been waiting for was the Jedi to find themselves a clone army – which he had done splendidly, even giving the war a nice opening by getting himself captured in Geonosis.

' _Shush_ ,' Obi thinks at him. ' _I'm trying to keep this all straight in my head and report it as **I** know it. It's hard enough to keep from reporting your experiences as it is_.'

' _Sorry_ ,' Wan answers, not looking at him.

"Tell us of your time, Knight Kenobi," Even Piell says to Obi. "Prove to us you really are from future."

"It's Master, actually," Obi says and then shakes his head. "I don't know how to prove it – everything of the future I know can only be proven by the future itself.

"A Master, is it?" Yaddle says. "As a Master know the Master's Code you then must. Recite them for us you will."

Obi lifts his eyebrows and then nods slowly and launches into the Master's code. "In face of emotion I will promote peace," he recites, a little unsurely but with increasing confidence. "In face of ignorance I will teach knowledge. In face of passion I will display serenity. In face of chaos I will search for harmony. In face of death, I know there is only the Force. I am a Master of the Jedi Order and I will uphold and teach these edicts of the Order, in face darkness and disaster, torment and death. For the Force is with me… and I am one with the Force."

Silence follows his words. He got a couple of words wrong here and there, Wan muses, having listened to dozens of Jedi reciting that same code back when he was part of the Council himself, but aside from that… it's accurate enough. And it is only ever spoken once by a Jedi, repeated after the Grand Master's recitation when the title of the Master is given – it isn't written down anywhere nor is it supposed to be learned before hand. The only time a Jedi hears the full litany is when they're given the rank of Master, so it is… simple enough test of his true rank.

It wouldn't be enough here, but it's a start.

"Thank you," Yaddle says after a moment, sharing a look with Yoda, who hums, thoughtful.

"Now to you we turn," Yoda says, looking to Wan and glancing him over, frowning at the armour. "Tell us you will what occurred from your perspective."

While Obi is given the due suspicion, Wan is given outright disapproval by the Council, it seems. Well it's no wonder – he did kill the Supreme Chancellor, claimed to be a General of an Army and he showed up in nearly full armour. For a Jedi of this time, he's an absolute terror in human form, isn't he?

Wan smiles a little at the looks he's given. "I was on my way to a system called Mustafar to kill a Sith Lord, when I was grabbed by the Sith magic," he says. "Hence the armour." Not that it would have given him that much of an advantage against Anakin, but it would've given him advantage against Mustafar's hellish temperatures if nothing else.

Obi makes a noise beside him and then covers his mouth with his hand, looking at him. Wan gives him an apologetic look and then turns to the Council. "Like my counterpart here I emerged in the basement of a Serenno prison – but unlike my counterpart, I knew the man we were facing. Sheev Palpatine had just crowned himself the Emperor of the newly established First Galactic Empire and ordered the execution of the Jedi Order, and Darth Sidious was active during the war as the ultimate leader of the Separatist movement so… I knew him well."

"That's a… very bold claim to make," Windu says, his face passive – but the tension of his hands and shoulders gives the emotion he feels away. "Can you prove it?"

"Of course not," Wan answers. "We're talking about a Sith Master of the Bane line – they're nothing if not excellent at covering their tracks. By the time we learned of his true identity, it was far too late to actually _matter_ , and even then we had little actual proof, just his own confession on a holorecord. Sith or Councillor, he was already the Emperor by then – there was… little we could do about him anymore. At this time, the only one with any proof of Palpatine's identity as Darth Sidious is probably Dooku."

"Why do you think that?" Eeth Koth asks, he too trying hard to not give anything away – but Wan can see it on their faces. Dooku had told them something.

"He is – or perhaps in this time would have been – Sidious' second apprentice. Darth Tyranus, his title was," Wan explains. "In my time he was, until his death, the leader of the Confederation of Independent Systems – together he and Palpatine orchestrated the whole galactic war. I don't think Dooku has been named a Sith Lord yet – he made it sound like it's a lengthier process than we know – but he definitely was already working for Palpatine on some level."

His words are followed by a period of silence as the members of the Jedi High Council eye him searchingly and exchange pointed looks. Whether Dooku had collaborated this story or told them lies, is hard to say, but he's confirmed something for them.

"You seem to have a lot of experience with the Sith," Depa Bilapa says. "More than your counterpart, and certainly more than Knight Kenobi."

"The Clone Wars was their playing ground. I have faced _several_ of them," Wan says and shakes his head. "I'll be happy to report all of it to you, write it down or perhaps store it in a holocron, but I don't think we're here for me to tell you stories about the Sith."

Another bout of exchanged looks and then Mace Windu leans forward a little. "You killed the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic," he says. "And your only defence is that he was in the future a Sith."

"He kidnapped, tortured and eventually killed Knight Kenobi and held Anakin Skywalker captive," Wan says rather flatly. "What should I have done – served him tea?"

Windu narrows his eyes. "Don't get flippant, Kenobi," he says. "This is serious."

"Yes," Wan agrees. "It is. Have you presented his body to the Senate yet? Are the news of the Supreme Chancellor's death out yet?"

No answer and this time no hint of what any of the Councillors' is thinking – they give nothing away. They might have or they might have not – Wan honestly can't tell. He's almost impressed.

"If you're looking to make someone take the blame, I will be happy enough to do it. I am the one who killed him and I will gladly bear the consequences of my actions," Wan says and ignores the twinge of discomfort and unease coming from Obi, or the surprise of the Council. "Knowing that Darth Sidious is dead is enough for me – knowing he can't destroy the Republic again is enough. I will die and join the Force _happy,_ knowing that he won't get to ruin the galaxy again."

Obi is full of wordless objection at that, but he says nothing, trying to keep his thoughts to himself as Wan falls silent and Windu leans backwards again, staring at him without an expression. Then Windu glances at Evan Piell, who sighs.

"In your time, the Jedi lead an army, correct?" the Lannik Master asks.

"Jedi were named the Generals and Commanders of the Grand Armies of the Republic following the start of the war, yes," Wan agrees. "It was a Senate decision and the Jedi Order bent to their wishes."

"Hm," Master Piell says. "And this army consists of cloned human soldiers?"

"Using a template of a Mandalorian bounty hunter named Jango Fett, yes," Wan nods again. "The clone army is already on the way, in the process of being grown on a distant Outer Rim world named Kamino – in my time they were only discovered immediately before the war. By that time, the initial patch of two hundred thousand clone troopers was already finished."

"Your rank – it is General, correct?"

Wan hesitates and then sighs. No point lying, is there? "High General," he admits. "It's a rank of the members of the Jedi High Council – we were all ranked as Jedi High Generals."

That makes them react a little, throwing frowns at him. "You're not yet forty, are you, Kenobi?" Windu asks, looking a little disturbed.

"Thirty eight," Wan agrees. "There were losses in the High Council that had to be… filled. I wasn't even the youngest member, by the end of the war." No, that pleasure had fallen to Anakin, thanks to Palpatine's machinations.

"Right," Windu says somewhat dubiously, while Obi eyes Wan in something like alarm.

"Becoming generals of an army changed the Jedi Order, didn't it?" Evan Piell asks, ignoring the looks shared by the Jedi High Council.

"Yes – and not for the better," Wan admits. "I suspect it was part of Palpatine's plan – a corruption of not only our ideals and purpose within the galactic society but slow destruction of our reputation and standing within the Republic. By the end of the war… quite lot of people believed we were behind it." And from what he could tell, not that many questioned or argued the execution order, or the tales of Jedi turning traitor. By that time they were all known as war mongering warlords, more as peacekeepers.

"Explain us the war," Even Piell says. "In as succinct way you can – explain how it started, what kept it going, and what ended it."

Wan draws a breath. Tall order, he thinks wryly... but one he'd prepared for. "The Clone Wars were long time in making, and quick to start," he starts. "A slow process of regulations and laws that put enormous pressure to the Outer Rim systems. Taxation of trade routes and hyper lanes, which benefited the inner core and bled the Outer Rim systems dry, that sort of thing. So, the Separatist movement begun, led by Count Dooku of Serenno…"

It's almost comforting to fall into the report and just let the words flow, explaining the slow tension as it grew and grew until all it took a spark – the discovery of the clone and droid armies respectively – for the whole thing to go up in flames. From there he explains the mess of Geonosis, and some of the following campaigns – Christophis, Hypori, Ryloh more than once, Geonosis again, Battle of Kamino and the horrors of Umbra… and so on and so on until the battle of Coruscant where the Supreme Chancellor was _captured_ and Count Dooku finally killed.

"We were in full swing of several different campaigns then. Mandalore was besieged, Kashyyyk was _covered_ in droids, and then I was ordered to take Utapau, the current known head quarters of the Seperatist Council," Wan continued, his mind set on a tunnel vision track now which, thankfully, makes the sheer horror coming from Obi easier to ignore. "It was supposed to be the battle to finally end the war. I suppose in a way it was, too."

He draws a breath and continues. "The Jedi Order was split in every which way, managing former or current battlefields, stationed on outposts and worlds previously targeted…" he trails away. "There were very few of us left, after all the losses we'd taken during the war, and we were spread thin. Almost no Masters at all left to protect the Temple. That's when Palpatine crowned himself the Emperor and got ultimate authority over the clone army – and immediately after, the execution order for the remaining Jedi went out. Our clone troops turned around… and shot us all in the back. A Sith Lord marched into the Jedi Temple, and executed everyone inside. In less than half an hour, the Jedi Order was destroyed."

' _Anakin_ ,' Obi thinks shakily. ' _Dear Force, you're talking about Anakin_ … '

Wan closes his eyes and shakes his head. "I survived the attack by my own clone troops, as did Grand Master Yoda, but we heard of no one else. We met shortly after under the protection of Senator Bail Organa, and then headed together to the Temple to see the aftermath. I sent out a message to any remaining Jedi to avoid the temple and hide, but we never found out if there were any others actually left. Master Yoda left to face the Emperor – I don't know what happened to him after. I left to face the Sith who slew the younglings of the Temple… and then I was summoned here."

He trails away there, his story told, nothing more left to say. Part of his mind is still there, on those moments at the temple, watching the security recordings of Darth Vader and it still feels a bit like he has a terrible job to do… but he's not there anymore. That task would forever be left unfinished. Darth Vader would survive.

"Wan," Obi murmurs beside him and Wan looks up, frowning. ' _It wasn't your fault_ ,' Obi thinks, though whether he means the summoning or the whole business of Darth Vader, is hard to tell. ' _It **wasn't**_.'

Wan looks away, disgusted with himself – though which of himself he's more disgusted by, he's not sure. Probably both in equal if very different measures.

The silence stretches, terrible and echoing with dread, as the Council tries to digest what Wan had just told them. "This Council will… deliberate on your reports," Windu says finally, his voice distant. "Thank you for your co-operation. Temple Guard – please escort these two to the Halls of Healing where they will be met by a Mind Healer."

"Yes, Master," the Temple Guard says and motions towards the doors.

Wan bows his head to the High Council and Obi hastily does the same, before they turn to follow the Temple Guard out of the Council chambers.

Immediately after the doors close, Obi reaches out to touch Wan, his hand reaching for his elbow. For a moment Wan considers shaking his off – he doesn't need the man's pity, damn it… except he knows it's not. Obi is horrified and yes he pities him, but mostly he just wants to comfort him – and maybe himself – and as much as Wan doesn't need it, he understands where it comes from all too well.

But like the apologies from ten year old Anakin Skywalker, comfort from younger version of _himself_ doesn't actually mean anything.

Obi's fingers hesitate at his elbow and then lower. "I'm so sorry," he says wretchedly.

"Let's just go to the Healers, see if we can get this mess sorted out," Wan mutters and moves ahead. Get Obi out of his head before the man sees even more – before he too would get tainted by the darkness of the future.

Radiating grief and guilt and horror, Obi falls into step with him and together they head away, followed by the silent, watchful Temple Guard – and a future neither of them wished for each other.

* * *

 

It's been a while since Wan has seen a Mind Healer. There'd been sessions after Qui-Gon's death to heal the severed training bond before it could permanently wound his psyche and there had been times during the war – more so in the beginning, before they got used to the horrors of it, before the toils and tortures of war stopped affecting them as much. But it's been more than a year since the last time Wan had been mind scanned for psychic injury.

It's an oddly novel and entirely disturbing, to have a Healer skimming gently the surface of his mind, peering at his scars and flaws. And as much as Wan tries to settle and keeps his mind calm it's – hard. His shields are shot to hell, and so are Obi's and between them their thoughts stray every which way like neither of them had ever done a lick of meditation in their lives and have no mental discipline to speak of.

"Well, it's… a bond," Master Vokara Che says, sounding disturbed. "It's not exactly a Life Bond, it's more a…"

"More like we share our Living Force?" Wan guesses.

"Yes," she agrees and pulls her fingers from Wan's hair, opening her eyes and looking between them. They're sitting on their knees on cushions while she's been examining them – Obi is trying to distract himself with a cup of tea she'd prepared for them, but his thoughts keep swinging back to Wan, to the war, to future, to the bond – and like Wan he can't quite control the paths his thoughts take.

"In Force you two are… understandably, very similar," Master Che says, moving to stand behind them. She rests her hand on Wan's head and then other on Obi's, and goes at a different angle at examining the bond – looking somewhere between them, rather than at each in particular. "Your Living Force flows between you two, from one to the other, without restraint. You form a – circuit, I suppose. It is very, very unusual."

' _You don't say_ ,' Wan thinks and feels the pathetic attempt at amusement from Obi.

"Is it dangerous?" Obi asks out loud. "Sometimes, it's hard to tell which one of us is thinking what and it feels as if it is getting worse."

"No doubt it is. There are no barriers between you two," Master Che says distractedly, her fingers twining into their hair, her eyes closing. "When did this bond form?"

"Three days ago, or thereabouts," Wan answers.

"It's been getting stronger but it wasn't exactly weak to begin with," Obi says and thinks of the feeling of Wan walking away from him in Serenno, the aching drain in his chest as the distance grew.

"No, I don't imagine it was. Let's see…" Master Che trails away and her thoughts skim theirs as she examines the bond. It feels like she's standing on the shoreline of the current, the Force a river she is gently brushing with her fingers, testing the waters. "It is getting stronger, or rather… it is getting harmonised. Or perhaps homogenised."

That… doesn't sound good, Wan thinks and shares a look with Obi. "You mean… eventually we won't be able to tell the difference between ourselves?" he guesses slowly. "Our thoughts will get so badly mingled that…"

"It will be like one person in two bodies," Obi continues, faint and dreading.

"If this keeps up as it has… yes, that is indeed a very real possibility," Che says and takes her hands off. She circles around them and then sits down in front of them, across the tea set on the floor. "You feel pain when separated, yes?"

"Yes, the limit seems to be around twenty meters. Any further and it gets unbearable," Obi says quietly.

"It makes sense – you are in essence trying to stretch your soul out," Che muses. "Within the Force you two are one and the same – the Force sees no difference between you two. That is why you _clicked_ as you say – you match each other perfectly. Or rather, almost perfectly."

"Almost," Obi repeats, wary while Wan frowns at his slightest spark of hope. At what – their differences? Is Obi still thinking they might be from different timelines?

"You are not exactly identical," Master Che explains and looks at Wan, "One of you is older, and has gone through experiences the younger has not. The time in between you has caused some differences between your physical forms as well – natural progression of age, the body's own replacement of cells to replace dead ones and of course the actual wear and tear of the things you've gone through. That, I believe, is the only reason you didn't _instantly_ mingle your spirits when you first _clicked_."

Wan stares at her for a moment in dismay and then looks down at the tea set while Obi almost recoils at the thought. "Is there a way to stop this?" Wan then asks.

"There are procedures we may try," the twi-lek healer says, looking between them. "If you want."

"Why wouldn't we?" Wan asks with a frown.

"You _are_ the same person," she points out. "From what you believe to be different points in same timeline. You wouldn't be the only creatures in the galaxy who share a type of hive mind."

It's said lightly – as if that really is an option, to just let their minds mingle together and become one.

Wan frowns at her for a moment, feeling strange vertigo at this easy concept of personal death and glances at Obi, who's staring at his tea cup, his expression fixed. He's thinking much in the same lines as Wan – yes, there are people existing in hive mind, yes, they are the same person, yes they would still be Obi-Wan Kenobi and yet... and yet, would they? Would they be themselves?

' _Would I still be **me**_?'

No, Wan thinks at him. You wouldn't be. You'd be part of me and yet again the good Jedi I used to be would be ruined and tainted by the horrors of his war. "We don't want to become one entity," Wan says, staring at Obi.

Obi looks up, his expression awkward and indecisive – he feels so guilty for not wanting it, glad that Wan doesn't want it either, and at the same time sad that he doesn't. Still such a good, selfless man – forever guilty for wanting things for himself.

"I thought not," Master Che says and considers them. "There are two – perhaps three options we can take."

"From worst to best, please," Wan says.

"We force distance between you and severe the bond manually," Che says. "Which will no doubt be unspeakably painful and might end up in the death of one or much more likely both of you."

Obi and Wan both turn to look at her in alarm and she nods. "I thought not. Second option; I erect an artificial shield between you two. It would be more a blockade really, but it would perhaps stall the flow of Force between you until you recover enough equilibrium to erect your own barriers. The chances of you succeeding aren't a hundred percent, you understand, and it would be extremely hard work, but it might be possible for you to stay separate."

Wan nods slowly. "And the last option?"

"We transform the bond," Che says, looking between them seriously, from one man to the other. "From a form of life bond to a conjugal bond instead."

Obi startles a little at that while Wan frowns at the healer. Having a life bond between them is already a little... much, but it can nearly be chalked up as them being pretty much twins of each other. But to turn it into a conjugal bond?

"Conjugal bond as in... a marriage bond?" Obi clarifies warily, somewhat incredulously. "Like in _legends_?"

"The terminology is neither here nor there," Master Che says, waving a dismissive hand. "It would put restrictions on the bond, tighten it – a conjugal bond is essentially an artificial construct rather than a natural bond, so you couldn't be able to alter it yourself. Therefore in theory, your living Force shouldn't be able to widen it as it is."

Wan frowns a little and looks down to the tea set. He doesn't know much about that sort of bonding – Jedi don't do such things. But he knows Dathomirians sometimes do a sort of marriage bonding and it has been a thing in past – where Force sensitives have entered into a restricted bond to enforce an equality between themselves. The purpose was to bind them together in Force – all the while making it a balanced binding, as opposed to bonds such as Master/Padawan bonds which are naturally unequal. No Force user is like the other, after all – there are those stronger and those weaker and it is easy for the stronger ones to affect those weaker than themselves.

A conjugal bond is supposed to be equal on both ends, neither stronger, neither weaker – and neither capable of influencing the other through Force.

"What... what does conjugal bonding entail?" Wan asks slowly and Obi turns to look at him hesitantly.

Che looks between them. "Commitment, for one," she says. "Once bonded, you can never bond with anyone else again – nor can a bond of this nature be broken. And I again can't promise this will work perfectly, and even if it does you will still have to achieve shielding on your own – chances are I would still have to put an artificial blockade in place at least temporarily. But it would be a more stable and restrained form of bonding – the danger of complete blending would be neutralised."

"What about Padawan bonds?" Obi asks nervously.

"You mean your Padawan bond with Anakin Skywalker? I have to admit that I don't know what will happen to it," Che admits and frowns. "Chances are it will have to be severed."

Obi startles at that and Wan sighs. He wouldn't mind, and the boy certainly doesn't want them there. Anakin has been doing his rather ineffective best to block both Wan and Obi out ever since arriving to the Temple – chances are someone is helping him with that. But Obi has already settled himself to the reality of training Anakin again from the start – part of him had even looked forward to it, to avoiding past mistakes he'd made with the boy. Mistakes they'd both made.

"How much time do we have until the blending becomes irreversible?" Wan asks quietly, and tries not to think how any of that might not be up to them. Wan is still the man who killed the Supreme Chancellor – hell, he might be facing his execution in few days time. After that... who knew. "Can we have time to think about this?"

"I don't know. The sooner something is done the better," Che says. "I suggest I put in the blockade now, in either case. It will stall the process and give you some time."

"Yes, please," Obi says and runs a hand over his chin shakily. "Some time to think would be... welcome."

Wan nods and looks away. Eternally fighting to hold up shielding and trying not to lose himself in another's mind – or marriage in the Force at the risk of losing of a Padawan who, really, doesn't even want them.

Why is it that when faced with such choices, they always seem to be between two equal evils?


	7. Chapter 7

No one would say anything. They ask questions and tell him what to do – go over it again, explain it from beginning, tell us how you felt, what words did they use, alright now go there, see this person, listen to them, do as they ask, eat this food and go to bed and don't talk to anyone about what happened – but no one will say what will happen now. No one will say what will happen to him

No one will promise him he will be a Jedi.

Anakin isn't stupid. He knows that no one really wants him in the Jedi Temple. The only reason he became a Jedi Padawan at all is because Qui-Gon died and Obi-Wan threatened that he would just leave the order and train Anakin outside it if he had to. Sympathy and threats kept Anakin in the temple and it made people pretty much hate him. He didn't deserve it, that's what everyone thought. He'd been given privilege a poor slave boy from Tatooine did not deserve because he was too old and too emotional and too dangerous and – and no one wanted him.

Except Qui-Gon who died… and Obi-Wan who died.

Now every time Anakin asks, "What happens to me now?" no one will answer. They look away, uncomfortable, or they look at him and frown, but they don't say it. They won't even say, "You'll be released from the Jedi Order," or just "You're kicked out." They just say, "Wait." And Anakin sucks at waiting.

He gets it though. It's a whole ordeal now, what happened. With the leader of the Republic dead and Sith and kriffin time travel and everything – it's a big deal and the Jedi have to be careful about it. Hence the questioning. Hence the waiting. But still it would've been nice to have something, not – not this _nothingness_.

They won't even let him see Obi-Wan. At least on the ship he'd been able to go to the airlock and know Obi-Wan was behind it but in the Temple he doesn't know. Obi-Wan could've been taken apart piece by piece during the course of the investigation as the Jedi Order tried to figure out what happened, and he'd never know.

In the meanwhile he knows what's going on with the _other two_. The healers of the Halls of Healing have tried to block them out of Anakin's mind best they could – Master Che even did a bit of some sort of sleep suggestion on him to turn him sort of deaf to what's coming through the bond _unrestricted training bond improperly put in place_ but… he can still feel them. He can feel their anxiety and confusion and dread and determination. Mostly determination.

They won't let him see them either.

"I just… I just wish someone would _tell me_ something," Anakin murmurs. "Waiting just makes this all worse – it would be easier if I had… I don't know. Something to wait _for_."

"You must be patient," Bant says gently. "I know it's hard and I know it hurts – Force knows it hurts me too. But these things take time."

Anakin nods against his knees, hugging them a little tighter to his chest. She's pretty much his babysitter while they make decisions and he's glad it's someone he knows at least – but it's hard too. Because she's sad and she can't look at him. Does she wish Obi-Wan had come back, and not him? Maybe.

Bant rests a long fingered hand on his shoulder for a moment and then looks awkwardly around his and Obi-Wan's housing. "I'll make some more tea," she then says and Anakin sighs. More tea, yeah, that'll fix it.

"Don't use the Sapir," Anakin says quietly.

"I know, I know," Bant says and makes Tarine tea instead, which Anakin isn't sure is any better. Still, at least it's not the Sapir. That package was probably supposed to go undisturbed in the back of the cabinet until kingdom come, considering who it used to belong to.

Now no one is there to pointedly pretend it didn't exist.

Anakin sighs and then releases the hold he has of his legs as Bant carries the tea set over, setting it down on the table between the couches. She did it – not exactly wrong, but differently than Obi-Wan did. Obi-Wan set the pot on the left side of the tray and the cups on the right, beside whatever snacks they had – she put the pot in the middle and cups at either side and there are no snacks. Anakin thinks she might've already fed him the snacks.

She serves the tea out similarly – and doesn't even make a face at it, like some of Obi-Wan's guests used to do when Obi-Wan served the tea to Anakin and not vice versa. It's one of the things that the Padawan was supposed to do – but after Anakin had broken one of the precious ceramic cups… Obi-Wan had pretty much banished him from setting a finger on the tea set again.

It used to belong to Qui-Gon. Then it belonged to Obi-Wan. Does it belong to Anakin now, the tea set? If he's kicked out of the Jedi Order because his bonds are all messed up and no _actual_ Master wants him, will he get to take the set with him? He doesn't even like tea, but the idea of the precious, important tea set being lost in somewhere in the Temple Requisitions…

Anakin's eyes water again and he takes a moment to breathe in and out before sliding down from the couch to drink his tea as close to the table as possible – he can't risk breaking another cup.

"I'm sure we'll have word soon," Bant days. "About what's going to happen next. By now they must be done with the questioning."

"Sort of," Anakin agrees. He thinks it was maybe disturbed – the emotions coming from Obi and Wan had sort of swung around – from harsher horror-determination-bitterness-attempted calm to slightly softer but still kind of terrible unease-confusion-dread-understanding. Also, he's pretty sure Obi and Wan are in the Halls of Healing now, which makes sense. Their bond is even more out of whack than Anakin's is.

Bant hesitates, looking at him – she wants to ask, but she's been told not to. So she doesn't and in the end concentrates on her cup of tea, taking a drink and then another. "Maybe we can watch some holos together, would you like that?" she then offers, a bit helplessly.

Anakin should be on lessons – but of course he's not. What's the point since he might not even stay here for long anymore? Dangerous to stop training him now that he's sort of in there – but what's the point if no Master will have him?

Quinlan might've, if he didn't already have a Padawan. Bant won't – she'd like to, but he makes her uneasy and uncertain and she doesn't understand him at all. Garen Muln is and has been on some long winded mission for the past four months and probably won't come back in months more, so that's out. Reeft… yeah that would never work.

Anakin sighs and forces himself to drink the tea. It tastes like boiled grass to him and the silence stretches on, awkward and hollow.

The knock on the door is _Force sent_.

"I am looking for Anakin Skywalker?" a female voice asks when Bant goes to open the door and Anakin stands up. It's Master Che from the Halls of Healing. "There are things I need to discuss with him concerning his training bonds."

"Right, of course," Bant says. "I can wait outside if need be. Anakin, is that alright with you?"

"Yeah, sure," Anakin says, uneasy.

"Thank you," the healer says to Bant with a nod and waits her to leave the rooms before closing the door and approaching Anakin. "Do you mind if I sit?"

"Sure," Anakin says and awkwardly sits back on the couch himself. "This is about Obi and Wan, right?"

"And your bond with them, yes," Master Che says. "You know about their bond with each other?"

"Yeah – it's kind of obvious and I was there when they snapped into each other. It was kind of hard to miss."

"Hm, yes, I imagine it would be," the twi-lek woman agrees with a mild smile. "However the bond is… stronger than previously perceived, and it's having some terrible setbacks on both of them. Due to the special circumstances concerning the pair of them, we're going to have to do some unorthodox things to even things out for them."

"What does that mean? What sort of setbacks?"

"Their bond is melding their psyches together," the healer says. "The details are complicated and delicate and private, but as whatever is done to their bond will affect you, I felt you needed to be consulted as well."

"What will happen to me?" Anakin asks, yet again, this time twice as worried as before.

The healer eyes him carefully. "The pair of them are considering having their bond re-forged into a more stable form," she says. "It's not something Jedi generally do, but as said… the circumstances are special and to save their individuality and technically also their lives, it is allowed in this case. This, however, might demand the severing of your training bonds with them."

Anakin bows his head a little. He… sort of figured, and really it's just matter of time anyway, and he should probably be glad – this would open him for another Master… but…

He's not… really decided how he feels about the bonds he has with Obi and Wan. He didn't really like that he'd been just dragged in like that – yeah, it makes sense, they were his Masters in other timelines, he clicked into place with them like he belonged there and it just makes _sense_ that he would… but still. It had happened all without his input.

He likes Obi, he knows that much. Wan is… harder to like but he's not _terrible_. They're not bad, not really… but they're not Obi-Wan. They're never going to be Obi-Wan. And Anakin doesn't like that they took that place in his head, the place where his actual real Master used to be.

But on other hand Padawan bond means a Master – in this case, _pair of Masters_ – on the other end. It might be illicit and unofficial and probably just overall _bad_ what with the investigation and all… but right now, they're next best thing to Master he has. If that bond is severed, will he ever have another Master again?

He still wants to be Jedi. And not just Jedi, but the _best_ Jedi, to prove Sith Anakin wrong and Wan too, and make Obi-Wan's and Qui-Gon's promises and oaths _right_. He wants to be a Jedi and stay in the Light and be _good_ and – and could he do that without Master?

The healer is watching him searchingly as Anakin finally looks up and – and he's not sure what to say. He doesn't know what he wants. He opens his mouth and then closes it again, because he really just… doesn't know.

"Would you like to see them and talk to them?" the healer offers gently.

"Is that allowed?" Anakin asks with a frown. "The High Council –"

"The High Council does not rule over the Halls of Healing," Master Che says and stands up. "In matters of health of the Jedi, both mental and physical, _I_ have the absolute authority. Now come. Let's go see Masters Kenobi."

* * *

 

Obi and Wan are drinking tea. Why that should for a moment surprise Anakin, he's not sure, but for some reason does. They're sitting in one of the dojo-like rooms in the Halls of Healing with a tea set between them and they don't look much different from the last time he saw them – Wan is still wearing armour and everything.

"Anakin," Obi says with surprise and lowers the tea cup onto the tray between them.

"Hi," Anakin says, a bit awkward. It'd been less than a day, but he'd sort of… well he hadn't really forgotten what they look like; they look like his Master except with beards and different haircuts and looking slightly older and stuff. But still – it startles him anew, how much they look like Obi-Wan – the jolt of pain and _loss_ is for a moment all new again.

"I'll leave you three alone, shall I?" Master Che says. "You can talk this amongst yourselves."

With that said she bows her head slightly and then backs away from the room, leaving Anakin alone with the future versions of his Master and feeling beyond uneasy about it.

"Come, join us," Obi says, motioning him to take the third cushion by the tea set.

"I just had tea," Anakin says, but goes to sit. Wan isn't looking at him – staring at his teacup instead, but when Anakin goes to sit the armoured man glances up at him, frowning slightly.

"Are you alright?" Obi asks gently, setting his own cup down.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Anakin says, though he really isn't, while crossing his feet in his lap and resting his hands on his knees. "Master Che told me about your bonding stuff. Something about re-forging the bond, and that I have to be severed from you."

Obi nods slowly. "Yes, perhaps," he agrees and looks at Wan, who meets his eyes for a moment and then presses his lips into a thin, severe line and looks down. "There is a chance the re-forging may be done without severing you, but…" Obi trails away, looking at Anakin. "What do you want, Anakin?"

Anakin frowns. No one's asked that before. What does he want? To be a Jedi. For Obi-Wan to not be dead… for Qui-Gon not to be dead. "I dunno if it matters," he mutters. "It won't make a difference."

"It will here," Obi assures him quietly and glances at Wan. "We won't do anything if it makes you unhappy."

"I beg to differ," Wan mutters.

"Wan," Obi says, his voice a warning, while Anakin looks up at the armoured man.

Wan shakes his head and looks at Anakin. "If the bond between us isn't changed, it will in a sense kill us," he says. "It's drawing us closer together and eventually it will meld us into one being. We'll stay alive but we won't be the same – we won't be two different people anymore, we will be in essence one person in one body."

Anakin eyes him. "Oh," he says. "That's – bad."

"Yes," Wan says wryly. "Master Che's suggestion is to go into the bond and force it into a more… uniform shape. That however will be a very dangerous operation and afterwards chances are we won’t be able to bond with anyone else ever again. Our bond will essentially be set in stone afterwards, it can't be changed ever again. If you're still _there_ when the bond is re-forged, it will most likely have permanent effects on you as well. And afterwards… we won't be able to take any more students."

"You know about conjugal bonds?" Obi asks, the question aimed at Wan.

"Not precisely, but I've looked into… unusual Force connections," Wan admits. "And unorthodox usage of the Force. Various forms of bonding came up."

' _Meaning you've studied the way Sith use the Force_ ,' Obi thinks – and this close, seems like Anakin can hear them again, healer instituted Force blocks be damned.

' _And dark-siders in general. There were… incidents with Dathomirians_ ,' Wan agrees and shakes his head, turning back to Anakin. "Do you understand Anakin?"

Anakin nods slowly. "If I'm still bonded with you, stuff might happen – and if I'm not… then I'm not and whatever happens to you wont affect me," he mutters, frowning.

"Obi probably won't be able to take you as his Padawan," Wan says quietly, while Obi lets out a sigh of uneasy agreement.

Anakin glances up at that and then lowers his eyes to the tea set. It kind of hurts that Wan doesn't even consider him a student anymore, that it's not even remotely on the table even with the Padawan bond in the place but – but that's beside the point.

"I don't think I will have another Master," Anakin says out loud, finally admitting what he's been fearing all this time. "No one will have me." He doesn't precisely _want_ Obi and Wan for his Masters, but – but he still wants to be a Jedi and this…

Obi opens his mouth to argue but quiets down when Wan sends him a glare. "There's another thing," Wan says slowly. "At this moment, Obi and myself – we're technically not Jedi."

"What?" Anakin asks, looking up. "But – you are? You're Jedi Masters!"

"No, not really, not until the Jedi High Council confirms it – and they haven't yet," Wan says with a shake of his head. "Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead and his claim to the title of the Jedi died with him – we're outsiders. We have the skills, we have his name, his face, his history, but we're not him. Ten to fourteen unknown years between us – it naturally makes the Council wary of simply accepting us."

Obi sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "I didn't even think of that," he murmurs, looking troubled.

"You – think the Jedi High Council might kick _you_ out?" Anakin asks with disbelief. "B-but you're – _you_!"

Wan shakes his head. "We are _problematic_ ," he says wryly.

"I'm sure the Jedi Order will not simply forswear us," Obi says, though he's frowning now.

"Not you, perhaps – me?" Wan chuckles without a hint of actual mirth. "We'll see."

"You could try, just for a moment, to hold back the cynicism a little. You might even like it," Obi mutters and shakes his head before turning back to Anakin. "In either case," he says. "This is a decision to be made with care – and yes, your wishes still matter."

Anakin looks between them while Wan rolls his eyes and reaches for the tea again. Weirdly – he feels a little better, knowing that Wan's and Obi's fates are up in the wind too. Makes him feel a little less alone, being so uncertain of anything. And it's nice, to be near them again. Maybe it's the bond or the fact that they are still, kinda, Obi-Wan but… it's just less lonely.

"What will you do if the Jedi Order lets you go?" Anakin asks curiously.

Obi sighs and Wan shrugs. "Who knows," he says. "Before that there's the death of the Supreme Chancellor to consider – and my involvement with it. I doubt I can just walk away from it."

"It's… better to take these things as they come," Obi agrees. "Until we know more. Right now – right now we should concentrate on the bonding and make our decision concerning it."

They're quiet for a while, eyeing the tea set between them and not looking at each other. "We need the conjugal bond," Wan then says quietly and looks up at Obi. "There's no getting around it. With it maybe if…" ' _…if I'm put to death or imprisoned for Palpatine's death, it won't affect you_.'

Obi looks up with his expression twisting with indecision and pain and then he looks down. ' _I wish it was different_ ,' he thinks sadly. ' _I wish that wasn't a possibility_.'

Wan says nothing and turns to Anakin. "Do you want to be Obi's Padawan?" he asks simply.

Anakin swallows and shifts where he sits, looking up to Obi, taking him really in. He's nice – he's sometimes even nicer than Obi-Wan was, when Anakin is honest. Obi-Wan was all stiff and awkward and yeah he tried his best but he didn't know how to be a teacher or how to take care of other people. Obi does know – he's had experience and he's obviously good at it. The Master Obi-Wan could've become, that's Obi. The fussing, it’s a second nature to him. He's _super_ nice.

… a bit too nice at times, really. Kind of… coddling, actually.

Anakin looks down at the tea set for a moment, frowning. Then he looks up at Wan instead. Where Obi is all soft smiles and warmth, Wan is a brick wall – he sits straight backed and kind of hard and maybe part of that is the armour, it's like it doesn't quite let him relax, but Anakin thinks he probably is straight backed and severe even without it.

No nonsense and no bantha poodoo from Wan. Never once did he coddle Anakin – the one time he really tried to soften the blow of his own words and actions was when they were talking about Sith Anakin, and even then he didn't really do that thing most adults do. The _I know what you can handle better than you can, and that's why I'm not telling you anything_ thing which even Obi does at times. Wan just doesn't care about that – or rather Wan has seen what became of him, he knows how much Anakin can handle and then _lets him handle it_.

And as… harsh as Wan is at times, Anakin kind of likes that. Likes that Wan doesn't soften the blows with gentle smiles and soft words – he just tells it as it is. No one else does that – everyone else, even Obi, kind of babies him.

Except Wan might be put to death – and that's… that's really terrible now that he really admits to himself what that actually means. Wan might be _executed_. Or if not that, he might be imprisoned. He killed the Supreme Chancellor. He might just be taken away and they'd never see him again – Anakin would never see him again. And Obi – bonded to him – might have to go through his death. That's…

That's wrong.

"Anakin?" Obi asks while Anakin keeps staring at Wan.

"Yeah," Anakin says, and looks away from Wan and down at the tea set again. "I want to stay bonded with you."

Obi startles a little at that and looks up at Wan who frowns.

"It's a very dangerous path to go down," the man says warningly. "We don't know how the re-forging of the bond will affect you. It might still sever your bond with us. The healers might still decide that you will have to be severed for your safety."

"There – there are Master-Padawan pairs that aren't bonded, however," Obi says quickly, comforting. "There is still a chance that even if you're severed that I can take you on."

Anakin nods, swallowing around the ball of ache lodged in his throat. "I kind of want you both though," he murmurs, almost soundless.

"I'm – sorry, what was that?"

Wan obviously heard – or who knows, maybe he reads lips. In either case, he's staring at Anakin when he looks up, looking surprised – looking weirdly _hurt_. Anakin shrugs awkwardly and looks away. "So, what happens now?"

For a moment, neither answers. "I think," Wan then says. "We need to see what the Council has decreed for us – if they have decreed anything yet. We're on the brink of… multiple things here, and we need a decision from the Council before we can safely proceed one way or the other. We _must_ know what has been done with the investigation."

"You're right," Obi agrees with a sigh and runs a slightly shaking hand through his long hair. "But will the Council tell us?"

Wan sighs and stands up. "Doesn't hurt to ask."

* * *

 

"The investigation finished is," Yoda tells them, as they stand in front of the Council – Anakin between Obi and Wan. "To the Senate it has been transferred – finish their own analysis of the supplied materials they soon will. Tomorrow on the holonet the announcement of the Supreme Chancellor's death will no doubt be."

They wait, Anakin just barely withholding the urge to anxiously jump from one foot to another. Obi and Wan are both full of _dread_ and _determination_ behind him and neither dares to break the tense silence.

"Well?!" Anakin finally demands, unable to hold it in. "What's gonna happen to Obi and Wan?"

"Obi and Wan?" Master Windu asks, wryly, leaning back on his cushioned chair.

Obi clears his throat awkwardly and Wan sighs. Anakin shrugs. "Have to call them something – and you're _stalling_." Sometimes he swears the Council just _likes_ making people squirm.

"What was the conclusion of the investigation?" Wan asks wearily.

Windu's eyes jump up to him and for a moment he says nothing. Then he waves a hand. "Roughly a week ago, a Jedi Knight and his Padawan learner were kidnapped by a Sith Lord and were held captive for indeterminate time, estimated two days in total, during which they were abused and tortured and experimented on. The exact the motivation of the Sith Lord is unknown, what was done on the two Jedi is unknown but it all resulted in the death of both the Sith Lord and the Jedi Knight."

Anakin frowns, looking between the members of the Council uncertainly, while Wan feels like _suspicion_ and Obi thinks, ' _Are they…?_ '

"The Padawan survived the incident," Windu continues. "And met up with a former Jedi Master, now a Count of Serenno system, Dooku, who during unrelated investigation of the said Sith Lord, came upon the information concerning the kidnapping. With the help of the Count, the Padawan was returned safely to Coruscant, and with them they brought back the bodies for investigation."

' _They are_ ,' Wan thinks in alarm. ' _They must've made a deal with Dooku – this is_ –'

"The Jedi Order determined the identity of the Sith in question, the Padawan was questioned, the investigation on Jedi Temple's part was closed as quick as possible – and all pertinent information was transferred to Senate for further analysis," Master Windu says with finality. "Is that understood?"

Anakin wavers a little in confusion and then looks up at Obi and Wan, who stare at the Council in some horror. "Yes," Wan finally says. "We understand, Master."

"Good," Windu says firmly and then sighs, running a hand over his scalp. "You are not yet reinstated as Jedi, never mind as _Jedi Masters_ – and you are most certainly not a member of this Council," he adds, eyeing Wan. "But you _are_ part of this Order."

"Yes, sir," Wan says slowly and Obi frowns slightly.

"And – what happens now?" Obi asks slowly, resting a hand on Anakin's shoulder. "From what I understand, you've… completely covered up our existence?"

"What happens now is that you will deal with the bonding mess between yourself," Windu says, making a slightly displeased expression. "Get the whole matter sorted out as quickly as possible."

"We understand there are – issues," Master Mundi says with slightly soothing tones. "That needs to be addressed. Healer Che has informed of the – options you have."

"Options which this Council does not approve off," another Councillor, one whose name Anakin doesn't know, says, also making a face. "However special dispensation is made due to your unique situation."

Anakin thinks back to Master Che's somewhat dismissive words and wonders if they really had that much say in the matter.

"You will deal with the situation," Windu says again. "The rest will be determined once we know the outcome. Once the healers declare you stable, we will decide upon the rest. In the meanwhile, you will stay within the temple and you will keep low profile."

"Right," Wan says, frowning. "And… Count Dooku?"

"What of former Master Dooku?" Windu asks coolly.

Wan eyes the dark skinned man for a moment and then shakes his head. "I'm sure you will do as you feel you must," he says slowly but he thinks, ' _They **definitely** made a deal with Dooku_.'

' _It might not be… a terribly bad thing_ ,' Obi thinks back, sounding about equally uneasy and worried. ' _You yourself don't think he's a Sith yet, right_?'

' _And chances are he never will be, now. But he's definitely not hundred percent on the light side anymore, though_.' Wan narrows his eyes a little. "And what of the clones of Kamino?"

"An investigation has been sent," Windu says. "That is all you need to know right now."

"There is information I can supply concerning the Kaminoans and the clone armies," Wan says slowly.

"And it will be appreciated, please take a time to make a report once the bonding issues have been resolved – but you will have no hand in the investigation at this time," Windu says very firmly, narrowing his eyes at Wan until the armoured man finally nods. Windu then turns to look at Obi, who says nothing. The Master of the Order nods, satisfied with whatever he sees there, and then looks down at Anakin. "Skywalker?"

"I want Obi and Wan to be my Masters," Anakin blurts out.

Windu narrows his eyes and the Council goes silent while Wan sort of _stops_ completely and Obi radiates surprise and curiosity at him. "Do you?" the Master asks flatly

"Yes," Anakin says. "I mean they are, they were – they are," he says. "But I want it to stay that way. Even with the bonding stuff."

Windu stares at him hard for a long time and Anakin can just feel the looks Wan and Obi are sharing over his head, but he ignores them to stare down the Master of the Order. He doesn't know how well he does, Windu doesn't seem very moved.

"No one else wants me," Anakin says, and some insecurity slips free. "Do they?"

Obi's hand on his shoulder grips him reassuringly and then – there's another hand, Wan's, on the middle of his back. It's a light touch, just his palm against the back of Anakin's tunic – but when Anakin leans against it, it hold firm. It's surprisingly warm – a reassuring heat all but radiates from it.

Windu looks between Obi and Wan and then looks down at Anakin. Then he sighs. "We'll see what the healers think. Dismissed."


	8. Chapter 8

"You must be prepared," Healer Che told them. "The process of creating a conjugal bond is long winded and complicated and I suspect in your case it will take even longer than normal. There is a reason why these sort of bonds are done in lengthy ceremonies – and that is much how it will go here as well, by necessity. For that you need to be mentally and physically prepared."

Because of that the bond would not be transformed that very day. They were given a day's grace to prepare themselves. Which, quite honestly, is very welcome. It's been a good four days since Obi has had the chance to really freshen up – and judging by the state of Wan's hair, it's been even longer than that for him. The man had gone from war zone to borderline exile shortly before his arrival – who knows how long it had been going on. Never mind the chance to sleep in a proper bed.

It's awkward, being led by Anakin to his and Knight Kenobi's quarters, though. Since it's all on short notice and the results are still uncertain, the Temple isn't going to bother going through the trouble of assigning them their own quarters right then – not when there are Knight Kenobi's and Padawan Skywalker's quarters right there, and formerly _theirs_ anyway, to be used. Anakin doesn't like it, but the boy has made his decision – he's sticking to it.

Obi couldn't have been prouder.

Wan isn't even thinking about it – he's still thinking about Dooku, and what the man must've been planning. ' _Turning his involvement into an investigation, how very much like_ Dooku,' he thinks. ' _Makes him a concerned citizen rather than a participant – which coming from a former Jedi Master is only par the course, isn't it? Saving a poor lost Padawan and now exposing the Supreme Chancellor's true corruption… aside from Palpatine's underlings, he'll be hallowed as hero_.'

' _Perhaps that will do some good to his morals_ ,' Obi comments silently.

' _Tch, hardly. He'll use it to gain more political power. Serenno is much like Naboo in their standing – a prosperous but ultimately small world in the Outer Rim regions, not of much consequences for anyone_ ,' Wan thinks. ' _Not much power in galactic scheme. But the public does love a hero – that's how Palpatine got elected_.'

' _You don't think_ –'

' _No. Dooku doesn't have Palpatine's backing in the Senate – Palpatine got elected because he had the loudest Senators in his back pocket, Dooku doesn't. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Dooku just happened to become a very powerful Senator of Serenno very soon. And if we one day see Supreme Chancellor Dooku… This was all very clever of Dooku._ '

Obi looks at him with a frown and then looks ahead. Well that puts something of a damper to his relief about Wan not being executed, doesn't it? Not that he's not still relieved – but if that was the cost of it… ' _Why did the Jedi Council agree to this?_ '

' _Because, ultimately, they win more this way than they lose. A Sith Master dead and no blame on them for the death of Supreme Chancellor. Dooku will take care of the fallout and all the Jedi Order has to deal with is the death of their knight and the rumours of his involvement_ ,' Wan thinks. ' _Something Dooku will no doubt quickly brush under the rug to keep the attention on himself instead. And of course we don't know what else went into the deal. The Jedi Order might now be in possession of damning material concerning Dooku that might be twice as valuable. In a way they certainly do_.'

Wan runs a hand over his beard and looks at him. ' _And they get to keep the pair of us_.'

' _And our future knowledge_ ,' Obi muses. ' _Not that the High Council seems to put much stock to it right now._ '

' _They are prioritising stabilising the situation. No use counting your wins before you've dealt with the immediate losses_ ,' Wan muses and looks ahead again. ' _Later, once they're sure we're not about to die or go insane on them… later there will be questioning about the future_.'

"You know that this close up I can hear you, right?" Anakin asks ahead of them and they look at him as he keys in the code to open the door to his and Knight Kenobi's quarters.

"I'm sorry Anakin, we will be more careful," Obi says quickly, wincing a little. He hadn't even realised – there's a block between them and Anakin that has weakened the connection, but of course, this close up… the strength of their combined Living Force would overwhelm it.

"It's fine – just sounds like stuff you probably don't want to be talking about around me," the boy shrugs and looks back to them. "Since I'm kid and all."

"That's not… why we talk in our heads," Obi says, a little awkward. Mostly it is because they just flat out _forget_ to speak out loud. One of them would start thinking in sentences and the other would answer – and then they'd be having a mental discussion, just like that. It was as natural as breathing now.

"It's easier," Wan says out loud. "And keeps what we have to discuss private from other listeners who aren't privy to the knowledge concerning our true nature."

"Yeah, I get it," Anakin points out and shrugs again. "I'm not mad or anything, I don't even get most of what you're talking about. I just thought you should know."

Obi frowns a little at that and glances at Wan. Wan considers the boy for moment and then nods. "We will explain it all in length once we have better time," he promises.

Anakin peers up to him for a moment. "Huh," he says then and looks back down. Then he enters the quarters he shared with Knight Kenobi – and Obi and Wan follow.

The quarters are different than they are in Obi's time. The sum of small souvenirs they'd gathered over the last ten years are gone and what personal touches there are around the main living area are still mostly… inheritance from Qui-Gon. Oh – it's… before he got rid of most of them, isn't it?

The decorative rocks by the window sill – the succulent plant by the kitchen counter, which judging by the looks of it is on the brink of inevitable death of over-watering. There's even that tea set on the living room table, sitting on a tray with two cups at each side.

Obi isn't the only one who feels a throb of pain at the sight of it – that simple, dark clay pot that had been long since lost to one of Anakin's early puberty tantrums. He'd throw it into a wall, and stormed out while Obi-Wan had been left behind to pick up the pieces and – and it had been _fine_ , eventually. Anakin had apologised profusely and earnestly and gone through enormous amount of trouble to find a very nice replacement… but still.

Qui-Gon's tea pot is still there and whole, and so are the cups. In Obi's time, there was only one of them left, sitting on an honorary place in the top of the spice shelf where no one ever touched it again.

"I uh, had tea with Bant Eerin before," Anakin says awkwardly, noticing them staring at the tea pot. "Sorry, I know I'm not supposed to touch it."

"It's – it's fine," Obi offers even as he struggles with sudden private alarm at how much it _still_ means to him – how much it still hurts. He and Anakin had eventually gone around the quarters and finally put Qui-Gon's things away, laying their old Master finally to rest in a place where his absence wouldn't hurt them anymore, it had been cathartic and painful – and in the past. The idea that it all might still be here, everything Qui-Gon left behind…

Ten years, and he's _still_ not done mourning for Qui-Gon Jinn, is he?

Wan reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder for a moment and Obi only notices it after a moment when the heat of his palm radiates down through the cloth and for a moment…

Obi can see in his mind's eye Wan's quarters in the future. They aren't in the Jedi temple anymore – there was no point, he was there so rarely. Instead he had his room in the Star Destroyer – the General's Cabin near the bridge of the Negotiator. It had been much more sizable than a single Jedi's quarters usually are – two rooms and a private fresher. Over the course of war, he'd accumulated a collection of… mementos. A glass bowl of blood red sand from Geonosis, a piece of vivid green crystal from Christophis, a plant from Ryloh that he always forgot to water but which the clones were happy to tend to for him.

And the back of the room. The entire wall there had been completely dominated by buckets marked by various orange symbols. Clone helmets from the fallen from 212st Battalion. How it begun, Wan can't quite recall now – but every time a Clone from the 212st fell, their helmet eventually found their way to his wall. Sometimes he hung them himself – sometimes he came back and there were new helmets up there. At the end of the war, there was good fifty of them on his wall – and Wan was _so proud_ of how few there were…

The image cuts off sharply – Wan _kicks_ him out of it – and Obi blinks, feeling as if he's coming back from dark cave and stepping into light, suddenly able to see again. Obi glances at his elder counterpart uncertainly but Wan is already turning away, tense.

"I really need to get out of this armour," the man mutters and turns to head to the bedroom. Obi blinks after him and then runs a slightly shaking hand through his hair. Then he looks around himself, trying to centre himself in the present.

Anakin is clearing away tea set very carefully and methodically, and he radiates unease at having them there but also determination to make them welcome. "Anakin, do you mind if we use Knight Kenobi's clothes?" Obi asks, trying to bring his mind back to the present.

"I guess not," Anakin admits – though he obviously does, squirming a little. "I mean – until you get new sets of clothes and stuff."

"Thank you," Obi says and glances around the rooms, looking down at the tea set. "Excuse me," he then says and follows Wan into the bedroom.

Wan is standing by the nearly made bed, easing the armour around his lower arm. There is a sound of ripping as they come off the black body glove he wears under the armour and for a moment Obi hesitates by the doorway.

"I'm sorry," Obi says. "I didn't mean to get into your head."

"It's fine," Wan answers and sets the – arm guard? – down to the bedspreads, before moving to remove the other, followed by the armour around his elbow. He's tense, though, and when he goes to tug the bands around his biceps off, he does it roughly.

Obi sighs and after a glance back at Anakin in the living area, he steps into the bedroom and lets the door close behind them. This room at least is more or less how he left it in his time small simple and sparsely furnished. "Do you… need help?" he asks then, while Wan unclasps the utility belt around his waist.

"I got it," Wan says, almost snaps, and then hesitates, setting the belt down onto the bed. "I've put this armour on and taken it off more times than I care to count – I can handle it."

And he doesn't want to risk another touch and another shared memory.

"Yeah," Obi says and folds his arms, looking at him over. Wan does something at the side of his waist and the armour snaps open there – then he repeats the process on the other side, and the back and breast plates split apart from each other. He doesn't take them off at first, though – he unclasps the pauldrons first, one after another, and sets them down. Then he takes the armour covering most of his torso off, lifting it over his head with a sigh.

"May I have a look at those?" Obi asks, curious about how much the chest plate weighs.

"Feel free," Wan answers, as he goes to unclasp the codpiece. Obi moves beside him and then curiously runs a hand over the scratched, worn armour plates. They're cool to the touch – the feel isn't quite metallic, but it's not pure plastoid either. Then Obi eases his fingers around the chest plate and lifts it.

It's lot heavier than it looks.

"Plastoid composite," Wan answers the unspoken question. "Full armour weighs around thirty kilos in total."

"You go around in this all the time?" Obi asks in astonishment.

"Not all the time – only during engagements," Wan says and sets the codpiece down as well before bending down to take care of the plastoid plates around his thighs. "Seemed like smart thing to wear when going to face a Sith lord."

Sith – Anakin. Darth Vader, Obi thinks and swallows. "Doesn't it slow you down?"

"Force offsets it enough that it doesn't matter," Wan answers and sets the plate down. "It's not lightsaber proof but it does offer limited protection against environments – and Mustafar is a volcanic planet. I didn't really feel like heading there while wearing just wool."

"No, I imagine not," Obi says and sets the armour down. He still can't imagine a time where Jedi wear armour by necessity – a galaxy where Jedi serve as Generals of a great army. The evidence is there, and so is the experience, Wan all but radiates it, and still… it seems so strange.

Wan sets another plate of scratched up plastoid composite down, and Obi sits on the bed to watch him, feeling oddly at loss at this. He's gotten used to seeing Wan in the armour – seeing him now taking it off feels as if seeing him naked.

Wan sits down beside him to ease the last of his armour off – his shoes, which also are covered in plastoid plates, and then the armour around his calves and knees. All of these plates probably have names – if Obi concentrated he could probably get them from Wan's mind, but…

"That's better," Wan sighs and after setting the shoes down he stands up again and stretches. There's sound of joints popping and his spine crackles as he stretches his back this way and that, limbering up. Obi watches him, awash with second hand relief and even pleasure at the lack of the constant weight on him. He can't tell for sure, Wan is still wearing the black body glove, but the man's waist looks… thinner than his own is.

And then, without further ado, Wan starts to take off the body glove too.

Obi lets out a noise of objection he can't quite hold back at the sight of his skin revealed.

Wan is thinner than he is, he finds, but that's… that's utter inconsequential in comparison to what else is revealed. Under the armour and the body glove Wan is scarred. And not just with the small nicks and blemishes of an active Jedi Knight – no, he's… he's _scarred_.

On his waist there is a large patch of discoloured pale skin, a signature of bacta-treated burns. Pockmarks on his other waist – blaster burns. A strange thin line around his ribs which takes Obi a moment to identify and then Wan turns around and he sees his back and – oh, he recognises it now. It's a whip mark, and Wan's back is covered in them. Someone whipped him hard enough to cut skin – and he definitely didn't get bacta treatment for that to stop scarring. More discolouration on his shoulder, more pockmarks from blasters – something on his shoulder blade Obi can't immediately identify, though he can tell by the discolouration that he's been treated with bacta there too…

And he's bruised. All along his body there are motley-coloured patches of discoloured skin, some of them as big as Obi's palm. They're well on their way to healing, but the yellow patches amidst the red and purple and blue just make them uglier… makes them look all the more painful.

"Staring is rude, you know," Wan says, without sounding bothered by it in the least, and pushes his pants down and off as well, to reveal more old wounds and scars and patches of discolouration – and what looks terrifyingly like lightsaber burn on his thigh – no, _through_ his thigh. "You're making me feel all self conscious."

That's my body, Obi thinks faintly – that's my body, gone through a war.

He's not exactly unmarked himself – he's been active on the field since he was thirteen, you don't go through that without being hurt once, but this is something else. This looks like… like going through nothing but injuries for years on end.

And now that he's looking, the thinness is hitting him too. Wan's body is all corded muscle and sinew, without a hint of fat stored in between his skin and his frame. It might be what lot of self conscious men strive to look like, but it just makes him look starved. He's all hard planes and harsh angles and it looks – harsh.

Obi swallows and looks up. Wan is staring at him, now with a frown. "That bad, huh?" the man asks quietly, standing there in nothing but his underwear, looking for the first time actually a little bit awkward.

Obi swallows again and then, slowly, stands up.

For a Jedi their bodies aren't that… important. They're not supposed to be, either. A body is nothing but a vessel for their spirits – within it, their true beings lay hidden until death would release them from their earthly container, and they could join Force. They are taught to have neither pride nor shame on their appearances – only to keep a healthy balance and keep their bodies functional. They're not supposed to find themselves neither beautiful nor ugly, not to feel either pleasure or pain at their own physicality…

Lot of them do anyway – Obi certainly does, sometimes to an extend other Jedi seem to find rather obscene. And to see his body in such a state is…

"Don't," Wan says, stepping back before Obi can touch him, and he thinks back to the flash, to the memory of his quarters on board the Negotiator he had unwittingly shared. He doesn't want to share this – he doesn't want Obi to feel the pain of those scars from back when they were still wounds.

"I…" Obi starts to say, half apologetic and mostly just… confused. "I'm sorry," he offers, though whether he's apologising for the almost-touch or expressing sympathy of all the pain Wan had gone through, he's not sure.

Wan looks down at himself and then shakes his head. "I really need a wash," he says. "Can we not do this right now?"

"Y-yeah," Obi says quietly, his mind still stuck in wondering just how many injuries Wan has, how many had been healed before they had left mark – just how many times… "Sorry."

Wan shakes his head again and hesitates, almost turning away. Then he turns back. ' _It doesn't hurt_ ,' he thinks awkwardly – going for the mental form of communication because saying it out loud would be even worse. ' _Obviously they do ache sometimes when it gets cold, as lots of scars do, but in general… I don't even notice them_.'

He's cut up and bruised from nearly head to toe, and he doesn't even notice it. ' _Is that supposed to make me feel better_?' Obi asks in horror.

Wan draws breath and then releases it. ' _Most Jedi went through such things_ ,' he then tries, changing tacks. ' _I'm hardly unique in being scarred. Even Anakin –_ ' and then he seems to think better of it and stops there.

Obi shakes his head, looking down at the man's chest – scars there too – and then away again. Okay, sure, probably no Jedi came through the war without scars to show for it – but… none of them are here. And none of the are Obi's own future self.

"I don't remember being this self conscious," Wan mutters, _lies_ , giving him a look.

"It's not that – it's just –" Obi tries but he can't quite put the horror of it into words. It's not the scars themselves or how they look. It's not even the pain they imply. It's the whole package. How much older Wan looks, how weary he feels – how pronounced his hip bones are above the edge of his underwear. The scars, how _many of them are_. All of it.

This is what he would've become. This is what war would've made of him.

Wan draws a breath and then releases it in a sigh before shaking his head and turning around. He has bruises on his back too, under the crisscrossing of whip marks – and why does he have _whip marks_ on top of everything else? Obi finds himself hopelessly counting them as Wan heads to the fresher. Moment later the door closes and Obi is left staring at it, helpless.

Sure he knew, intellectually. He knew that Wan was different, had gone through different experiences. They are so different from each other, and still…

Still somehow this brings it all home.

' _I don't – mean to be insulting_ ,' Obi offers silently after him, even as he aches with the drain of separation. They're maybe eight meters apart and he can already feel it at the centre of his chest.

' _Stop talking and let me wash_ ,' Wan answers and then shuts down, blanking out his mind to the best of his ability as he concentrates on getting the days worth of grime of his – scarred – body.

Obi sighs and falls back down to sit on the edge of the bed, running shaking hands over his hair. His long hair, which has gone a little greasy in the past few days and which really needs a wash.

He thinks back to the time when he decided to let his hair grow long, when he started growing out his beard, when he looked at himself in the mirror for the first time and found himself pleased with what he saw there. He thinks back to bed fellows who called him beautiful, how much quiet, somewhat guilty pride he'd taken in that. Thinks of Anakin, teasing him because of how much time he spends in the fresher each morning, making sure he looks good for the day. Petty, trivial aesthetic concerns he'd let himself take pride and pleasure in.

Wan's hair is cut short, his beard is uniform in its length – he no longer contours it like Obi does. And Wan certainly doesn't use much in way products on either one anymore. His looks… are no longer a concern for him.

Obi doesn't know what to think about that. It makes sense. But it also makes him feel oddly sad. Somehow he knows – Wan doesn't take pleasure in his own looks anymore. No one's called Wan beautiful in a long while. It doesn't matter to him anymore. And of course, they're Jedi and it shouldn't matter anyway, and still…

It seems terribly depressing. Obi thinks of Wan in those quarters, looked down on by the helmets of his fallen men, and it all seems so hollow and lonely. There was no Padawan in those quarters – and they certainly weren't rooms you brought a lover in. Where would he even find one, during war time?

What a terribly cold, grey existence Wan lived in.

' _Will you stop it_?' Wan thinks irritably at him. ' _I'm not exactly miserable here_.'

' _Aren't you_?' Obi thinks sadly and draws a breath. ' _Sorry_.'

' _Just – stop. Go see what Anakin's doing_ ,' Wan thinks with a mental sigh. ' _I haven't had a real water shower in a good month – let me enjoy it_.'

Obi bows his head, wondering about reality and time where having something as simple as water shower is cause of pleasure and enjoyment – and then he gets up and goes to see what Anakin's doing.

Anakin is sitting on the couch, hugging his legs and staring at nothing in particular. "Scars, huh," the boy says and glances up wearily.

"I'm sorry Anakin," Obi sighs and sits down beside him, trying to ignore the tug of his chest. Thankfully the quarters are pretty small – there isn't enough space here to get too far away from each other for it to become unbearable. But it's still there, aching.

"It's fine, I guess," Anakin murmurs.

"How are you feeling?" Obi asks, trying to distract himself from the feel of Wan's unease and awkwardness – and the hint of angry humiliation he's trying to release into the Force. Obi hadn't meant to humiliate him, but it seems… somehow, he had. _Damnit_ , Obi thinks, and looks at Anakin. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," the boy says again and then sighs. "I wish I got to see Obi-Wan. He's been sent to the Senate, right? For the investigation."

"Probably," Obi agrees apologetically. "He will be eventually transferred back for the cremation, though. I don't know if you can see him before that, and – I don't think it's good for you to see the body at this stage. It might not be…"

Anakin swallows and nods. "Yeah," he agrees and for a moment buries his face in his knees. He takes a breath and then lifts his face again, resting his chin on his knees. "Why doesn’t the council like your bond, or the re-forging of the bond?"

"It's complicated," Obi says with a sigh. "As the bond is right now, it's… roughly the equivalent to a life bond. Jedi don't form such things – at most we have bonds between Masters and Padawans and perhaps pair bonds between partners, but what myself and Wan have, it's more of a… family bond. It's much deeper level of attachment."

"And once it's changed?" Anakin asks. "All the Council made faces at it – why? It's going to save your lives, right?"

"Yes, but… there are aspect to it they don't quite agree with," Obi says with a faint laugh and looks away. He's been trying to not think of it in such terms – it isn't as if what he and Wan have is _romantic_ but… "A conjugal bond is also known as a _marriage bond_ because in history it was used primarily between married partners. The connotation is a little awkward."

"Because Jedi don't marry," Anakin says and makes a face. "But you're – you know. Pretty much twin brothers."

"Hm," Obi agrees dryly. "And thus it's twice as awkward."

For all that showering seems to be a rare pleasure for Wan, these days, the man is done with it at record speed – six mere minutes after he got in he's already out. Obi frowns a little at this haste but then shakes his head – another difference between them, it seems. "I think I will have a wash as well," Obi says and looks at Anakin. "Are you going to be alright?" with just Wan, he adds silently.

Not that he thinks Wan would actually do or even say anything to deliberately hurt Anakin but… the situation there is still so tense.

"I'm fine," Anakin says yet again, in the same dull tone of voice as he did before and then he sighs. "I'm fine," he says again and this time he means it. "Go wash – you stink."

"You're all heart, young one," Obi sighs but gets up. "If you need anything…"

"This is my home, you know," Anakin says, giving him a look. "I'm _fine_ here."

"Alright, alright," Obi says and shakes his head. "Just making sure."

Wan is out of the shower when he enters Knight Kenobi's bedroom, going through the dead man's closet. Obi hesitates by the door and then steps in – and this time he tries not to stare too hard. It's hard not to, though – Wan is wearing only a towel slung around his waist and the hot shower he took has made the discolouration of scars and bruises all that much more pronounced on his skin.

Wan glances at him and then pulls out a under tunic from the closet. "How bad will it be for Anakin to see us wearing his Master's clothes?" he asks, ignoring the undercurrent of tension.

"Nothing he can't recover from, but… it will be awkward," Obi admits, while going through the motions of undressing himself.

"Hm," Wan agrees, considering the tunic and then throwing it to the bed to pull it on. He follows it with clean pair of trousers and underwear and then hesitates over a folded, cream coloured tabart. After a moment… he puts it back and then reaches for something in the back of the closet instead.

It's his surprise that draws Obi's attention from setting his belt down.

Wan is holding a long, plentiful piece of grey cloth – which certainly isn't a colour Obi has ever worn, and judging by the feel of it neither has Wan. It's not a tunic or a robe or even a tabard, though, it's a –

"Oh," they say together, when Wan holds the piece of clothing up and it unfurls in length. It's a poncho, a grey one with darker trim.

Qui-Gon's poncho, which he wore whenever he was trying to go incognito – usually with varying levels of success.

"This is still here," Wan murmurs, lowering the clothing and idly rubbing his thumb on the fabric. It's the same synthetic wool fabric as most all of Jedi clothes, striking a delicate balance between homespun and mass production – both looking humble and also technically being humble, seeing how cheap they were to produce. Still…

They'd gotten rid of the clothing same time they'd gotten rid of most of other of Qui-Gon's mementos. This poncho had been included in the things they put away.

Wan hesitates over the cloth and there's spark of something. Obi tilts his head and delves into the spark – it's one of quiet, faded longing. Neither of them _dared_ to try the thing on when they were young, and then they'd gotten rid of it along with everything else, so by the time they were mentally stable enough to try it, it was long past the point where they could. But now…

"You should put it on," Obi says and turns away, to strip.

"Wouldn't that be more awkward," Wan muses, though he hesitates.

Yes, but it's the first thing you've _wanted_ since you killed Palpatine, Obi thinks and very carefully don't form it into transferable words. "I think we both are going to have to get used to things being a little awkward."

Wan says nothing for a moment and looks at him. "Obi," he says then and he sounds and feels terribly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry I'm putting you through all this."

"You're not putting me through anything," Obi says and shrugs his tunics off. He carefully doesn't look down at himself – though he can feel Wan doing so, his eyes tracing the largely unblemished skin. _Soft_ , he can feel Wan think – but it's not an insult. It's more nostalgia and hint of regret. He looks soft and part of Wan misses that.

Obi breathes in and out and then glances at the man. "I think we'll both have to learn to compromise here," he says and then smiles wryly. "We're about to get married, you know."

Wan arches an eyebrow at that and then smiles with equal dryness. "Well," he says and turns away. "At least I have a very pretty bride."


	9. Chapter 9

"Hope mind you do not, that here I am," Yoda says, when they arrive to the Halls of Healing the next morning. The old Grand Master looks them over, arching a brow at the poncho Wan wears but says nothing about that. "Witness this the Jedi High Council wishes."

"It's fine, Master Yoda," Obi says, casting a look at Wan. "Isn't it?"

Wan waves a hand. "It's fine," he says. He'd expected it, really – certainly in his time the Council wouldn't have let something like this go without someone there to witness it and as it is, the Jedi Council isn't quite as… busy in these times as they were in the future. Still he would've preferred privacy.

It had been a tense night. Obi had argued him off the couch and to taking Knight Kenobi's bed and then they'd spent most of the evening pretending they couldn't feel Anakin's bitterness about the whole thing. If everything works out and they still have a place in the Order after this, they really needed to change quarters if at possible. Not only are there only two bedrooms in the current quarters of the Kenobi/Skywalker pair, but the Master's bedroom isn't big enough for another bed and there are… all too many memories there.

They'd all gotten some sleep eventually, but it hadn't been an easy night and now they're all a little irritable and not at their best.

Yoda looks between them and nods. "After the bonding finished is, much there is to discuss," the Grand Master says and looks down to Anakin, who frowns back. Yoda hums and then turns, stick tapping the floor as he does. "But for later that is. Now, see the Master Healer we will."

Wan and Obi share a look and then follow, Anakin doggedly at their heel. Che is almost ready for them – she is not ready for the Grand Master. "Master Yoda," she says flatly. "I do hope you don't think you're coming with them into the chambers?"

"Chambers, Master Healer?" Yoda asks.

"Due to underlying issues, we'll be doing this in the Chambers of Silence," she says and looks up at Wan and Obi. "Due to your shielding issues and because you can't seem to exercise proper mental discipline, there can be _no_ distractions when the re-forging begins."

Obi startles a little at Wan's side while Wan frowns. Chambers of Silence, hm? He'd never gotten the… pleasure of being treated in the Chambers of Silence and he'd considered himself fortunate for it – many other Jedi hadn't been nearly so fortunate. It makes sense they'd be required for the bonding, but…

"That's… unexpected," Obi says slowly.

"It is necessary," Che corrects and looks down at Yoda. "And only the people this will directly affect will enter it, Master Yoda. Even at your level of control, you will only be a distraction."

"What are the Chambers of Silence?" Anakin whispers, tugging at Obi's sleeve.

' _Sensory deprivation chambers_ ,' Wan thinks at him. ' _A big, black chamber full of salt water, where you lie in the water and you feel, see and hear nothing. The chambers also block out all outside Force. It's like being cut off from the whole universe for a while_.'

Anakin blinks and then concentrates. ' _That sounds kind of wizard_ ,' he thinks slowly, albeit dubiously.

' _Everyone I know who's been to them calls them deeply unnerving_ ,' Obi thinks with a sigh and looks at Master Che. "What will the re-bonding in Conjugal bond actually entail?" he asks warily. "For it to demand a Chamber of Silence…"

"In normal case, the mere creation of an artificial bond under the guiding hand of outside force – in this case, myself," Master Che says. "However in your case we must unravel the existing bond as we are creating the new one, and as you can imagine… that will be a lengthy, dangerous process. This will most likely take hours."

Yoda frowns a little but nods. "Wait outside I then will," he relents and looks up at Obi and Wan. "The results I will check once the process done is."

"As you will, Master Yoda," Wan says and looks at Master Che. "Do we need a change of clothing?" he asks, running a hand over the cloth he's wearing. He doesn't want to ruin the poncho with salt water now that he's wearing the damn thing.

"No," Master Che says and motions them to follow. "You don't need clothing _at all._ Come on, and I'll explain the process to you."

"I guess I'll wait here?" Anakin asks, looking at Yoda.

"Didn't you ask to remain bonded with Masters Kenobi?" Master Che says, looking down at him with an arched brow.

"Well yeah, but – this is between Obi and Wan, isn't it?" Anakin asks and looks between them.

"If you're not that in that chamber with them, you will be severed from them," Master Che says simply. "Part of the reason for the chamber is that it will block off any inert and ineffective bonds they may have, for safe nullification. All other bonds they have or ever have had will be removed during the course of the re-forging. To preserve your bond with Masters Kenobi you will need to be there – and you will need to be build into their new bond."

"Dangerous is that for the boy?" Yoda asks with a frown.

"Not if we do it right," Che says and looks at Obi and then at Wan. "However that bond will also be permanent once done. Your Padawan bond with Anakin Skywalker can never severed as normal Padawan bonds are."

Wan blinks at that and then looks at Obi in alarm and then at Anakin, who looks up with wide eyes. "Wait, does that mean I will _always_ be a Padawan?" the boy asks in alarm. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a Padawan!"

"Having that bond doesn't mean you can't be knighted," Che says with a small smile. "Only that you will forever be bonded with these two in the ties of Master/Padawan bond."

"That would've been nice to know _before_ ," Wan mutters, running a hand over his beard and eying Anakin warily.

"I didn't know about it before – I spent the whole of yesterday researching this," Che answers primly. "It's not as if this is common practice for the Jedi – there are many things about this process that are wholly new to me as well."

"But think you do that perform this operation you can safely?" Yoda asks slowly.

"I have made conjugal bonds before," Che shrugs and meets Obi's and Wan's surprised looks levelly. "I was stationed in Dathomir for a time," she explains. "The Nightsisters there have great many interesting healing abilities – I learned much from them. Including quite a deal about their bonding ceremonies. Dathomirians don't normally have Padawan learners, however," she says somewhat dryly. "So that part was rather new."

"I see," Wan says slowly, frowning.

"What does this mean for Anakin?" Obi asks worriedly. "A permanent Padawan bond, yes, but – will it be different from the normal one?"

"Only if you make it so," Che says and looks at the boy himself. "You yourselves will have to naturally take part in the rebuilding process and you only take what you bring into that chamber. What comes out of it, part of that will be up to you."

Anakin frowns and looks down for a moment, thinking about it. Then he looks up at Obi and Wan again. "I still want it."

"It's not a decision to make lightly," Obi says warningly.

"I made it yesterday and I stick to it – I still want it," Anakin says and looks up at Che. "I _want it_."

She nods solemnly and then looks at Wan and Obi. "Right this way then, gentlemen."

* * *

 

The water in the Chamber of Silence is perfectly at human skin temperature. It feels like nothing on his skin as they wade into the knee-deep water – slightly above knee-deep for Anakin. Of all four of them only Che is still wearing any clothes – but she's not in the water with them, she's walking to a ledge that protrudes over the pool and sitting down there, feet crossed under her robes.

"Please lay down in the water, your heads turned towards my direction," the healer says. "Once you're comfortable the chamber will be sealed and all light blocked out."

Wan looks at Obi, who immediately kneels down to help Anakin get comfortable. The boy is nervous and uneasy – not embarrassed despite the nakedness, he is a former slave after all – but the sensory deprivation chamber unnerves him, and no wonder. The gently arching black walls of the oval-shaped chamber make it feel very cramped, more like a cave than a room in one of the biggest buildings in the galaxy.

"I don't know how to swim that well yet," Anakin murmurs embarrassedly, as he awkwardly straightens out in the water and then splashes a little, nervous about floating freely.

"You don't need to swim, only float and relax," Obi says gently.

"But what if my head goes underwater?"

"There are supports on the bottom, just in case," Master Che says. "Can you feel them? They switch up and help keep the patient's face above the water if they have trouble staying relaxed otherwise."

"Mm, here," Obi says and then switches a support up and helps Anakin to rest his head on the smooth curve of the support. "How's that?"

"Bit weird," Anakin says and takes a deep breath and straightens out his limbs in the water, floating in place, anchored by the support now. "But better."

Obi nods and then looks up at Wan. "Shall we?"

Wan sighs and moves beside him, to kneel in the water at Obi's side. Together they lay in the water, with their heads towards Master Che and the arching curve of the pitch black ceiling above them. The doors of the chamber aren't closed yet and there is still sound and light in the chamber, but – it's all already muffled, and the Force feels distant.

The moment the doors closed, it would all be blocked off.

"Are you comfortable?" Master Che asks and waits for an affirmative from all three of them. "The doors will be closed in a moment now and afterwards I will not talk. Try and fall into a meditative state – pull young Skywalker in with you, if he has trouble reaching the state himself. Once you've reached a proper level of meditative calm, I will join you and we will begin."

Wan takes a breath and closes his eyes. Obi is a little nervous on his right and Anakin is _terrified_ on his left, but they both agree quietly. Che waits for a moment longer to see if they have any apprehensions or objections, but as none of them says anything… the doors are closed.

The chamber plunges into absolute darkness and the Force of Coruscant and of all of the Jedi Order… disappears. It's like all of sudden, the four of them are floating in the blackness of space and all that's left of _anything_ is only them – only Obi at his side and Anakin on the other, and Master Che, breathing calm into the sudden chaos of their nervousness.

Wan lets himself relax, breathing in slowly and out even slower. He can feel Obi doing the same at his side. The tensions of the days before are hard to shake, but he does the best until his body is loose and his heartbeat slows…

The universe seems to fade.

Wan is almost viscerally aware of Obi now. He can feel the water sinking into his hair and the droplets in his whiskers, can feel his breath going in and out, hear the slowing beat of his heart in his ears. If he reached now, he could touch him. Not with his own hand, but Obi's hand – if he tries, he could make it his own.

If Obi tried, he could do the same – but instead Obi gently reaches for Anakin. With the Force of the outside world blocked of and nothing to _draw_ energy from, all they have to use is what is naturally inherent to themselves, and Wan can feel the effort Obi puts into pulling Anakin into a state of calm. He manages it, though, and after initial bout of nerves, Anakin follows.

Wan joins their meditation moment later, once Anakin is at ease and his inclusion to their hum won't disturb the resonance between them. It's a testament to Obi's skill in guided meditation – his own skill too – that Anakin doesn't so much jostle, but settles in between them, slowing, calming…

Then Master Che is there.

' _We will begin by pruning the bonds you have had which have been severed_ ,' She says and she means Qui-Gon and Satine and Ahsoka and everyone else Obi-Wan has ever loved and held close in Force. ' _Are you ready?_ '

No. Yes. _They must._

They begin.

* * *

 

Wan is terribly shaky as he comes back to his body. He can't tell how much time has passed, how long they lay in the salt water. Light is breaching back into the chamber and it almost hurts – and there's Force, sneaking in as well, and it feels… distant. Bleary, he looks at the opening doors, at Grant Master Yoda who is waiting outside, and he thinks – nothing. Nothing at all.

Obi is there, at his side, inside his head, a built-in part of his spirit now. The coursing river of their previous bond has been tamed into an artificial channel now, and the current within is constant now, neither racing, nor slowing. Anakin is a walkway between, skimming the sides and edges of the bond, another built-in feature but not part of the current and Wan thinks –

Nothing.

"Hey," Obi says beside him and it takes a moment for Wan to register his touch on the small of his back. He can't tell the temperature at first, or even the touch, only a slight pressure until Obi moves his hand, up and down. "Are you alright?"

Wan blinks and looks at him.

It doesn't hurt to look at Obi anymore. He doesn't look like embodiment of _regret_ anymore.

He still looks like something that shouldn't really be, though. There's water running down in rivulets across his face, his long hair flat against his scalp, soaked through by the salt water – he's beautiful. He's everything Wan isn't, anymore. He's aglow, his eyes shining in the light screening through the doorway, his skin smooth and unblemished and perfect – he looks innocent. Wan knows he isn't – he knows that better than anyone. But Obi’s still untouched.

Obi hasn't been _there_ , in those dark places and moments that marked the last three years of Wan's life. He hasn't been there in those sleepless nights, in those nightmares, in the moments where he sat by the bed of the injured, the dead and the dying, and felt _hopeless_. Where he held a lightsaber in bloody fingers and no longer felt like a _Jedi_.

Darkness is like a place in time, and Obi has never truly been there. He hasn't been there and it isn't within him.

And that doesn't hurt anymore. It doesn't fill him with jealousy to see Obi like this, so damn _innocent_ and maybe even ignorant. Wan isn't quietly, bitterly jealous of it anymore. Obi is rather a settled thing now, a fact of his life, he _belongs there_ and… and it doesn't hurt.

Wan looks away, running a hand over his wet beard and then shaking his head. Then he looks up at Che, who is walking around the pool and towards the doors. "Momentary confusion is natural," the healer says gently. "Take all the time you need – I will make sure no one bothers you for a while."

Wan nods, but says nothing – he doesn't think he can form words yet.

He just wants to sit there for a moment, chest deep in the skin temperature salt water, and _not hurt_.

"Is he alright?" Anakin whispers.

"He's going to be fine," Obi says, and his hand is still there, on Wan's bare back, stroking up and down. "You can go and wash up if you want Anakin. We'll take a moment longer here, if that's alright."

The boy hesitates and then nods. "I'll get you towels and stuff, for when you get off," he says and gets up.

He'd done well with the isolation and the re-forging to the bond, Wan thinks distantly. A lot calmer and more accepting than future Anakin had been – his Anakin would've been too individualistic to give into the bonding as easily as Anakin had. The boy had been nervous, but he'd been trying to so hard to be good and patient and calm…

It doesn't hurt to think of Anakin either.

That bond doesn't hurt anymore. They'd gone in and repaired it, and his mind no longer screams for the Padawan lost to darkness.

"Wan," Obi whispers and then he's pressed against Wan's side, arm around his waist, anchoring him – and Wan realises in an oddly vacant way that he's crying. "It's alright," Obi murmurs against his bare shoulder. "It's alright."

"What's wrong with me," Wan mutters, confused, and wipes at his face. He can't tell if it's water from the pool or his own tears – it's all salt water. But he's still crying. He can't stop – he can't figure out why he's doing it in the first place, it's just… happening.

"It's alright for you to not _hurt_ all the time," Obi answers. "You know that, right?"

Wan inhales shakily and then closes his eyes. The Force is trickling in through the open door, but it's distant – there's just him and Obi there, in the water and that's – that's fine. That's just _fine_ , in the actual literal definition of the damn word and that's… that's rather novel for Wan. He's fine – and he doesn't even feel guilty about it, for once.

"I got you," Obi says and runs his fingers through Wan's wet hair. "It's alright, I got you. You're not alone. It's alright…"

Wan turns his head and looks at him. Obi smiles and wipes his thumbs under Wan's eyes and then rests his forehead against his and – oh, that's it, isn't it? Wan lets out a choked, disbelieving laugh and clasps the other man by the sides of his face, marvelling at the feel of it. Wet skin and wet hair, warm and solid and real and soft – and _his_. Obi is _his_.

He's not alone anymore – and he knows deep in the pits of his soul, that he's never going to be alone again. Obi is always going to be there now.

They're neither of them ever going to be alone again.

It's a long while before they get up again.

* * *

 

Thankfully, Master Che is true to her word, and though Wan can imagine the Council's eagerness to try and prod and poke at them, they are given time to _recover_ from the bonding – there’s only Anakin there to welcome them when they finally leave the isolation chamber. Obi fusses over them both, even though Anakin is already dry and clothed, and Wan lets him, quietly letting himself enjoy it.

He's still riding the soft high of it. He can figure out what it is, too, where it comes from – endorphins and oxitocin and whatnot released during the bonding process, a whole concoction of happy brain chemicals. Obi, more used to them than he is these days, is having an easier time pushing them aside, but Wan is still teetering on the cusp and he rather likes it there, and isn't in too much of a hurry to come down yet.

The crash probably wouldn't be too terrible – he doesn't think he will descend back into the guilt and grief and darkness so fast… but still. He's for the first time in long while riding a _happy_ mood swing, and he's going to enjoy it.

"It's like he's drugged or something," Anakin mutters somewhere very far away.

"Sometimes lack of pain is as good as being drugged," Obi laughs, towelling his hair dry. "He'll be back to his normal grumpy self eventually, no doubt. Now, how are you feeling? With the bond and all."

"Eh," Anakin says and Wan can see from the corner of his eye how he waves a hand in a sort of so-and-so motion. "It doesn't feel that different from before to be honest. It doesn't feel… I don't know, that urgent, now? You're still there, but it's not in my face anymore, that much – like there's this barrier between? It's kind of nice actually."

"That's how Padawan bonds are usually supposed to be," Obi says. "They're not supposed to be overwhelming."

"I definitely like it better," Anakin says.

They go back to their rooms – or Knight Kenobi's rooms? The trip takes somewhere between blink of an eye and forever and then they're there, and Wan can't quite recall when they arrived. Time has a strange, soft, sleepy quality to it, and vaguely Wan thinks he could go to sleep now actually. He could go to bed and sleep and see no dreams and it would be pretty nice.

Obi fusses over Wan to make him sit down by the couch while he goes to make them some tea. Anakin sits across from him on a cushion on the floor and vibrates with nervous energy while Wan stares at nothing, still floating somewhere in easy, comfortable senselessness, not really caring about anything too much.

"So, what happens now?" Anakin asks, and it takes Wan a moment to realise whom question is aimed at.

It takes effort to pull his mind into something like order enough to answer. "Hopefully, the Council will reinstate us as Jedi of the Order," he says. "We'll most likely be in probation for next several months, constantly questioned about the future… but hopefully at the end of it we'll get to be Jedi Knights again, if not Masters."

"You will go back to your lessons," Obi says, carrying the tray of tea to the living room. "And we'll start teaching, properly this time."

"Properly this time?" Anakin asks worriedly.

"Ten years of experience," Obi reminds him and sets the tray down before starting to pour for them. "Trust me, by this time we know what to teach you and how to do it properly."

"Obi-Wan wasn't a bad Master," Anakin says, frowning.

"No – but it took us a few years to figure out how to go about it," Obi says and puts a cup of tea in Wan's hands. "Careful, it's still hot," he says, and turns to hand another cup to Anakin. "It's not a criticism of your Master's abilities exactly, Anakin. We better than anyone know he tried his best. But he was still young and inexperienced. We aren't. "

Anakin makes a face and then digs. "I guess," he mutters and eyes his cup. Then he frowns and takes a sniff of it. "Is this –?"

Wan smells the tea as well, curious. Strong and dark and little bit bitter. Sapir. Obi made them Sapir.

Smiling faintly, Obi sits beside him, close enough that their thighs touch. "First lesson,” Obi says and sips the tea. "Avoiding painful things will never make them go away."

* * *

 

It's few hours before Wan starts finally to feel more like himself. Even then, some of the changes seem to be permanent. And of course they would be.

Master Che had gone in and gently but firmly disengaged all of his badly torn bonds. Qui-Gon, Satine, Anakin and Ahsoka, yes, but also, Asajj, Dooku, even Darth Maul of all people had had some feeble tether to him and of course the Jedi Order itself of the future, the clone armies, the Emperor… So many broken connections still pulling at him in so many different ways and now they're just not there anymore. The bonds have been amputated cleanly, the holes they left have been build over, and all there is now is Obi, like a wall between him and everything and it's…

Never mind the fact that he can now put up his own mental walls again. The psychic defences that had been torn down by the life bond of before are back in place, gently propped up by Master Che's guidance, and the sense of security they give is surprisingly strong, after having gone several day without any semblance of defences.

It feels safe in his head again. His thoughts are, once more, his own. Obi's mind isn't there, intruding on every stray thought, and he isn't spilling his thoughts and emotions every which way anymore.

He could walk away from Obi now, and it wouldn't hurt.

It's _safe_ and the freedom to relax again is almost intoxicating.

"Starting to feel bit steadier now?" Obi asks from where he's sitting, across the table on the livingroom floor with a datapad in front of him.

"Mm," Wan agrees. He's lying stretched across the couch and strangely… he doesn't even feel guilty for taking all the space there. "Where's Anakin?" he asks.

"In his room," Obi answers and glances to the closed door. "Tinkering with some droid parts no doubt."

"Ah," Wan says and turns to lie on his back on the couch. So, sorting his way through the day the Anakin Skywalker way. Probably just as well. "I didn't think it would feel like this," he admits and breathes in and out. "Everything feels so…"

"Settled," Obi guesses.

"Yes," Wan agrees and blinks at the ceiling. It's like after days of being lost in space, he's finally landed on a planet to find that it was safe. Perfectly safe and full of friends. He shakes his head and looks at Obi.

Obi has showered, it looks like, gotten rid of the salt. His hair gleams nearly golden under the overhead light and his beard has been freshly trimmed. Pretty light, as far as his grooming habits go, and Wan would know – they used to be his grooming habits. Still, he looks…

 _Radiant_ , Wan thinks wryly and rests his cheek on the heel of his hand. Radiant like a newly married man. _Hah_.

"What?" Obi asks, giving him a look.

"I'm still a little high on endorphins," Wan admits.

"You know at some point it stops being just hormones and it's just you being happy," Obi comments amusedly, glancing up from the datapad. "And there's nothing wrong with that."

"I know there's nothing wrong with that," Wan says, amused – even more so when Obi gives him a suspicious, narrow eyed look. "Obi, I'm not unhappy by nature. When we met, my Order had just been destroyed, my student turned to the dark side, everything I worked and fought for was proven false and Sith had just gained control of the galaxy. How would your emotional state be in that situation?"

Obi blinks at that. "Ah," he says and sets the datapad down. "I guess you are still me, somewhere in there. Before you just…" he trails off. "You didn't seem to like it much."

Didn't seem to like _him_ , he means, Wan muses and the pushes himself up from the couch. "I am sorry about that," he says. "Coming here made it all for naught, and… no, I wasn't very happy about that."

"And now?" Obi asks curiously, tilting his head.

Wan considers that for a moment and then leans back against the backrest. "I don't know," he admits, a little surprised by his own honesty. He actually doesn't know – he no longer hates the idea, nor is he afraid of it. He doesn't _know_ , and that's rather freeing. "I guess we'll see."

"I guess we will," Obi agrees thoughtfully, eying him. Then he smiles, sly. "I think married life suits you," he says teasingly. "Husband mine."

"We're not actually legally married, you realise," Wan says wryly.

"We're married in Force – what authority could possibly be higher than that?" Obi asks, wide eyed.

Wan snorts at him and shakes his head. "You're really not going to let it go are you? Yeah, didn't think so," he says and leans back with a sigh. "… this is going to be so confusing if we ever get around doing missions again," he muses with a strange sort of appalled wonder.

Obi laughs. "I'm kind of looking forward to it, to be honest."


	10. Chapter 10

Anakin is starting to get used to it and sometimes he kind of hates himself for that.

The first days with Obi and Wan in his and Obi-Wan's flat instead of his Master are awkward. Despite the talks of getting a bigger place for themselves, with three bedrooms so that everyone could be comfortable, they never get around to it. It might be all the talking – the interrogations – and that they just keep forgetting, Anakin doesn't know, but… but they stay. And he gets used to it.

Gets used to waking up to the smell of caff in the living room, where Wan is already awake, always the first one up, sitting by the kitchen counter and rapidly writing something while sipping the caff. Gets used to the exchange of good mornings and the quickly-grown-tradition of "Enough caff for me?" and "I believe Obi said it's tea for you," and "well he's not here, is he?"

Sometimes Wan just gives him a look and points to the tea pot instead – sometimes Anakin gets to have a cup of caff, and share that awkward bit of secret indulgence with Wan who might give him a smile before going back to work. It seems to depend on what Wan is writing that time – if it's list of re-discovered sites of Jedi Relics they'd unearthed during the war, or list of future Padawans that hadn't yet been Searched… or if it was another battle report of another skirmish where hundreds and thousands of clones died.

In either case, Anakin gets used to that. Gets used to the moment of silence he sits with Wan before Obi comes out too, yawning and running a hand through his hair and bidding them good morning. There's a another quickly grown traditional exchange of Obi giving a scrunched up look at Wan's caff cup, Wan lifting it in amused greeting and drinking very pointedly before Obi rolls his eyes with disgust and goes for the tea cup instead.

"I don't know how you can drink that swill," and, "It's fairly easy – I open my mouth and swallow," and "Hmm, do you really." And depending again on whatever Wan is recalling that morning to report to the Council, they might either bicker or tease each other.

It's nice, is the thing. They've fallen into these places where they're all comfortable and it's _nice_. Obi will walk past Anakin and brush a hand over his shoulder before going to stand behind Wan to read over his shoulder – staying for a while if it's nice stuff, walking away quickly if it isn't. And then they'd prepare Anakin for the day's lessons.

Going back to Crèche lessons had been a relief and bit of a bummer all at once. It's sort of nice to get out of the flat for a while, away from the reminders that Obi-Wan isn't there – but then there's the Crèche itself.

Anakin had never fit the Crèche lessons. He was too old for one, sitting among kids four years younger than him at the best of time. For second, he was already a _Padawan_. Padawans were supposed to be above Crèche lessons, but since he doesn't have an initiates' background, he just doesn't know the stuff all Jedi initiates are taught, so… he has to go, the odd Padawan out in crowd of eager initiates.

And now everyone knows that his Master is dead, that he survived whatever killed him, and that he already has a new Master, two even, whom no one is supposed to talk to just yet. So, it's twice the staring and murmuring behind open palms.

Anakin is just glad that Jedi initiates and the younglings of the temple in general seem to be sort of beyond the concept of bullying other people. There's teasing and few rude words, but nothing like you might run into at the Quarter Row back in Tatooine, where more than once Anakin had ended up beaten black and blue just because he still had a mother, already had lot of usable skills, and actually occasionally got paid for his work at Watto's shop. Being human, young, comfortable and skilled does not make you popular among other slaves – most of whom are none of those things.

In comparison to that the sneers he sometimes get from older Jedi Padawans and such, they're nothing. Little awkward but nothing Anakin can't handle. Especially so now that his Crèche lessons have been reshuffled. Obi had gone in and _finally_ Anakin gotten taken out of the useless ones. No more wasting his time on mathematics or stellar navigation or any of the stuff he already knows – now his lessons are concentrated on stuff like history, biology, geology and celestial mechanics and stuff – things he doesn't already know. It makes the lessons actually harder, and Obi promises that as soon as they figure out the best schedule for him they can start adding in stuff like economics, diplomacy, and politics and such.

"Trust me, you're going to need all of it," Obi promises, though with a hint of uncertainty – he and Wan still haven't been reinstated as Jedi Knights. "And they are good baseline knowledge for any Jedi to have."

In the mean while, Obi and Wan are questioned, a lot, all the time, almost around the kriffing clock. If they aren't writing reports about the future, then they're talking with the High Council members about the future – or they're making holocrons in the living room – they got one each they're making, and it's beyond doubt the coolest stuff Anakin has ever seen.

Jedi can record data with the _Force_ it turns out, in an intricate matrix of kyber crystal, designed to store more information within it than most supercomputers.

"It's an ancient art, no one quite remembers where it came from," Obi had explained while they watched Wan meditate over his glowing blue holocron. It's in shape of a decahedron right now – the four corners of the full cube are floating around it as Wan impresses his force on the decahedron. "But it has been and still is one of the more efficient ways of storing information for the future."

"And of the future, apparently," Anakin muses, tilting his head as the holocron floats in front of Wan. "So you just – put Force into it?" How do you read it? Is there a machine or…"

"Holocrons generally store memories and knowledge, not data," Obi explains. "And they're guarded by a Guardian – an impression of the maker's personality. That guardian appears as if as a hologram when the holocron is activated and can make independent decisions on what information to share with its user. That is why they are called _holo_ crons. Anyway, that is what Wan is doing now – he's impressing his personality on the holocron."

"So you basically make an AI version of yourself?" Anakin asks, excited. "That's so cool."

"It's more an echo, not an AI," Obi says with a smile and folds his arms.

Their holocrons are originally identical in designs, two intricate crystal cubes that you can't really tell apart. But the further they go into impressing their will on them, they change colour. Wan's is much darker than Obi's, turning a vivid deep indigo in shade the further he goes along. Obi's cube on other hand grows little lighter with his knowledge and force, more azure in shade. They also feel different in Force.

They feel like Obi and Wan feel – one little darker than the other.

Mostly though, they give their reports of the future verbally to the members of the High Council. Soon, Anakin gets used to coming back home from lessons to find one of his two masters talking with Master Yoda over tea, and to finding out that other is out with Master Windu.

"They're testing us on our knowledge. Asking us the same very detailed questions to see if our knowledge matches," Wan says, rolling his eyes. "Which I suppose I can hardly blame them for, but it does get a little tiresome to be still doubted…"

But eventually it's just them telling tales about the future. Sometimes Anakin gets to sit with whoever happens to be at their quarters if it's a good story – or at least not a bad one. If it's Wan and about the war, he usually is ushered to his room to do his homework.

Overall though, he just… gets used to it, all of it. Gets used to the idea that if he goers to stand next to Obi, there's a 70% chance he will automatically get a hug. Wan won't hug him, but sometimes he puts a hand on his shoulder on his back, and that's good too. He gets used to seeing them in the kitchen, _failing_ at making dinner because apparently despite all the future knowledge they have, neither ever learned to cook any better than Obi-Wan did.

"I don't see why we can't just eat rations," Wan would mutter, glaring at recipe on a datapad.

"No one wants to eat rations, Wan," Obi answers, cracking eggs.

" _I_ want to eat rations. They're easy and quick and require minimal preparations."

"It's a good thing you're in minority then, because _I_ don't want to eat rations. Hand me that pot."

Somehow, they burn an omelette, and the pancakes they try to make come out raw and less is said about their attempts of _actual_ food, the better. Still, they try to make it work because they both know Anakin doesn't like to eat in the cafeteria, where everyone _stares_ , so… eating in it is.

And Anakin is just guilty because how much better it is, than it used to be with Obi-Wan. With Obi-Wan it was always cafeteria food because of course Obi-Wan didn't know how to cook either, but mostly because Obi-Wan wasn't even _there_. Most of the time, Obi-Wan wasn't even in the temple – he was out there in the galaxy, doing missions while Anakin was stuck on Crèche lessons. And sure, he knew why – Obi-Wan told him he needed all the working experience as new Knight as he could get before he'd be capable of taking Anakin out to the field. It made sense and Anakin had tried not to be resentful.

Now, though, now he comes home from Crèche lessons and there's someone _there_. It's never empty. He never comes into empty, dark quarters, never has to sit there alone and feel cold. There's always someone there now. And Anakin prefers it and feels guilty about preferring it. Feels guilty for thinking back to Obi-Wan and coming back home to empty house and thinking, _I don't want to go back to that._

Still, like other things involved… he gets used to that too.

* * *

 

And then there is Obi-Wan's cremation.

It takes a good week before the body is released back to the Jedi Temple, and they never let Anakin see it in person, not really. He gets to see it wrapped up in linens for the cremation, but they don't let him see Obi-Wan's face, don't let him touch him, and sure Anakin knows why, sorta – it's probably not best preserved anymore, it's been almost two weeks since he died, but still…

His master lies dead on a stretcher, his body wrapped in white linen, and Anakin thinks he should say or do something and he can't.

"It's alright," Obi whispers and crouches down beside him, hand around his waist, holding him close. "It's alright to be sad."

"Everyone says it's not," Anakin says. "That we're not supposed to miss people or mourn them."

Some of Obi-Wan's friends are there too. Bant and Reeft and Quinlan Vos is there too – Garen is still out somewhere on a mission. They're all keeping their distance, though, hanging to the other side of the chamber and throwing Wan and Obi uneasy, confused looks. They don't look… sad precisely. None of them is crying- They've known Obi-Wan all their lives, but they're Jedi and Jedi don't cry.

"They’re all _idiots_ ," Wan says, flat and weary with awkward honesty, and looks down at him. "Missing someone and mourning them isn't something you can just switch off. It happens if it happens, there's no stopping that."

Anakin bits his lip and looks away from Bant and the others. "But they say – Obi-Wan is with Force now, I shouldn't miss him." And _you_ are here, he thinks, in his place, so it's like he's not really gone. Except he is.

"With the Force or not – he's not _here_ ," Wan says and squeezes his shoulder gently. "You're allowed to feel his absence and miss his presence. You wouldn't be human if you didn't."

"Let it run its course," Obi says gently. "Letting go will happen later, with time – but right now is the time to mourn."

Anakin draws a shaky breath and nods, leaning a little into Obi, who takes his weight without complaint and holds him up.

The cremation chamber of the Temple isn't as grand as the hall where Qui-Gon's pyre had been. This room is all smooth, and round, no pillars around them and no shadows to hide in – it's lit in a dim glow that leaves no place to hide his tears in. Obi-Wan doesn't get a pyre either. He's instead going to be lowered into a chamber in the floor which will – will incinerate his body and send a beam of light all the way through the temple and up into the sky, to signal the death of a Jedi.

It's all very sterile, and Anakin knows it's going to be quick too – half an hour at most and the whole thing would be over. Anakin really preferred the pyre Qui-Gon got – it had been old fashioned and the smell had been terrible, but it had _felt final_. It had been a proper ceremony. This feels – too easy. Fake, somehow.

"Masters Kenobi," a familiar deep voice speaks and Wan's hand on Anakin's shoulder clenches slightly.

"Count Dooku," Wan says, his voice carefully even.

"This is a surprise," Obi says, giving Anakin a comforting squeeze and standing up.

"It was only proper that I would escort the body," Dooku says. "Knight Kenobi was quite the hero, after all. Slayer of Sith Lords in as many years – it's a feat rare few Jedi in history can boast."

Anakin draws a breath that shudders a little in his nose and then looks up. Dooku is standing there in all black, a cape slanted across his shoulders, and he looks solemn.

"Indeed," Obi says noncommittally. "We're all honoured by his sacrifices."

Dooku offers him a brief, wry smile. "You are still in probation, I assume?" he asks then. "I had hoped to talk with you two, over tea perhaps, but my access to the Jedi Temple is restricted to today – I fear I am not very welcome here currently."

"And what do we have to talk about?" Wan asks warily.

"Great many things, I'm sure," Dooku says, giving him a look and then looking down to Anakin. "Padawan Skywalker. My greatest condolences. Knight Kenobi was the Padawan of my Padawan – this is great loss to our Lineage."

"You were Qui-Gon's Master?" Anakin asks with surprise.

"Yes, for my sins," Dooku says, offering another awkward half smile and then looking up. Yoda is entering the chamber, looking old and slow. "And this would be my cue to depart. Still, before I go I would like to extend an open invitation to all three of you," he says, though he looks at Obi and Wan. "We really do have much to discuss. When your probation ends, do visit me in my quarters at the 500 Republica."

"We'll see," Wan says, eyes narrowed.

"I really do hope you will – and again, my most sincere condolences," Dooku says and bows his head a little before turning around and striding off.

"He wasted no time, did he?" Obi muses. "500 Republica already."

"He'll be a Senator by the end of the month," Wan predicts quietly and turns his attention to the Grand Master. "Master Yoda."

"Hmrm," the little grandmaster says and then looks at Anakin. "Begin we will when ready you are."

Anakin nods and draws a breath, turning his attention to Obi-Wan. Under the linens there could be anyone, and for a moment he almost wishes he could pretend it is, that Obi-Wan is still alive _somewhere_ , he's just not home right now – he's out there on another mission and, and…

But he isn't, no more than Qui-Gon is.

Anakin lowers his chin and sighs, feeling someone's hand in his hair. Obi or Wan, he doesn't know which. It doesn't matter right now. "I'm ready."

And just like he thought, the ceremony is all too quick - over and done with before he can think about it twice.

* * *

 

To cheer him up probably, Obi and Wan go out their way to book a training salle the next day. They haven't even been given their own lightsabers back yet, and their future is still a bit up in the wind, but they still do it, grabbing a selection of training sabers for them to use and then they do what even the Crèche Masters haven't done yet – teach Anakin to fight.

"Well, the lessons were going to start in about half a year anyway," Wan says, idly swinging the training saber in his hand to get a feel to it. "Idea was to get the more cerebral heavy subjects out of the way because you have more to catch up on when it comes to lightsaber combat, and once the training there begins it would take all your attention."

"What they don't know yet is that you’ll take to it like fish to water," Obi says and hands him a training saber. "Fiddle with it a bit before you turn it on, get a feel of it in your hand."

"Right," Anakin says, very serious, and examines the lightsaber handle. He's handled the training swords a few times during general physical exercise lessons, he's even used the training swords against a target droid once, but not a _real_ lightsaber. And sure, these things aren't hot enough to even burn you that badly, and they can't cut anything, but still… they're sort of like the real thing, glowing blades and all.

He turns the hilt in his hands a few times, gives it a couple of experimental swings, and looks at Obi for permission. The man smiles and nods, and with a whoop of joy, Anakin turns the blade on.

The training saber has a green blade, vivid and radiant and almost as good as the real thing.

"Right," Wan says and looks to Obi. "Starting with Shii-Sho blocks first? Or parries?"

"Parries seems about right," Obi says and takes one of the training sabers as well. "We'll show you couple moves, how to avoid being hit by a lightsaber, alright? Have you been taught to tumble yet?"

"A little bit," Anakin says, excited – he'd been half worried they'd whip out a training droid instead, but one on one training is _definitely_ better.

"Alright – show me couple of falls and then we'll see," Obi says, and then motions him to go ahead. "Do basic forward, sideways and backwards tumble, please."

It's not long until he figures out the downsides of having two masters who know _exactly_ what he's capable of learning, though. On one hand all the stuff they show him he gets quickly and figures out fast and there's never moment where he doesn't _get it_. But on other hand, they also know exactly how hard to push and then they just keep on _pushing_.

And they expect him to memorise everything after just couple – or in some cases, _one_ – repetition. And sure, Anakin pretty much always does, he's always been a quick learner, but it's so weird to go from Crèche lessons where everything is all about repetition, slow and boring to this. Anakin has always learned fastest by doing, and for the first time in his life… he has teachers who know and _trust_ him to. It's gratifying and terrifying because –what if now he suddenly can't memorise stuff on the first go around? What if forgets and gets it wrong?

What if he disappoints them?

"Well done," Obi says, once Anakin's arms and knees are bruised from tumbles and he doesn't think he can hold a lightsaber again after the blocks Wan had taught him – and then _tested_ rather harshly. "You'll be making your own lightsaber in no time at all."

"Hopefully we'll actually get permission for that," Wan sighs and swings the training saber with almost negligent ease – except there is no negligence about it. It's all so fluid, smooth and precise, the way he whirls the glowing blade around, one move flowing into each other perfectly.

"What is that?" Anakin asks. "I mean, the style you're doing. That's not Ataru, is it?"

"Ah, no," Wan says and lets out a chuckle and finishes in a forward thrust. "It's Soresu."

"Knight Kenobi must've not yet done the switch," Obi muses. "We started eventually testing other styles and settled on Soresu as the one that suits us the best."

"That's the – defensive style, right?" Anakin asks and makes a face at them. "Lame," he says.

"Psh, brat," Wan says. "You wouldn't say that if you knew how well it performs in a war zone."

"Hmm," Obi says, giving him a curious look. "How well did it perform in a war zone?"

" _Very_ well," Wan says, with actually hint of smugness to his tone and then aims the training saber at him. "I have actually been wondering how well I'd do against another user of Soresu with equal skills. Care to spar, Master Kenobi?"

Obi's eyebrows arch at that and then he smiles. "Why, _Master Kenobi_ ," he purrs. "I would be delighted."

Anakin looks between in alarm and excitement. "Are you going to _fight_?" he asks, breathless.

"Yes," they answer together, Wan shrugging off his poncho and throwing it to join Obi's cloak by the cushions on the side of the room while Obi rolls his shoulders and reignites his training saber. "Best you back away a little, Anakin," Obi then says and smiles. "This might get a little… rough."

There are no words for what follows, but _rough_ is definitely not the right one.

Anakin has seen Masters training before, he's even seen Master Windu sparring once and that had been beyond incredible but this is something entirely different. Anakin can barely breathe and he doesn't dare to blink for the fear of missing something – it's so fast, so fluid, moves flowing and twisting and spinning into each other faster than he can really keep up. The clash of lightsabers has a beat, a rhythm that makes it sound almost like music and after a moment he actually thinks they're maybe doing it on _purpose_.

It's obvious they're enjoying it too. It's not like with some Masters who sort of weirdly disdain their own abilities, because fighting isn't supposed to be the Jedi way and lightsaber shouldn't be used until and unless absolutely necessary. Most of the time when one of the initiates mentions lightsabers with excitement, they get speeches of restraint and peace and whatnot and Anakin gets this strange feeling that they're a bit conflicted about the whole matter of lightsaber combat. Lightsaber combat is a two edged sword, a terrible duty – it's not supposed to be a source of joy and they're not supposed to enjoy it.

Obi and Wan are enjoying the _hell_ out of their duel though. Wan is actually grinning for the first time in Anakin's memory, and Obi is laughing in absolute delight when his blocks are tested and his attacks blocked.

In the end neither of them wins nor loses – they just sort of wind to a stop, laughing and leaning to each other breathlessly and just enjoying the moment. "Well, that was different," Obi laughs against Wan's shoulder. "Now I know why no one ever wants to spar with me."

"Little bit frustrating for most, I imagine," Wan agrees, hand on his shoulder, grinning.

"What?" Anakin asks, bouncing to his feet. "What do you mean frustrating – that was _amazing_!"

"Defensive against defensive," Obi chuckles and pushes away from Wan. "It's one step forward and one step back, all throughout the match, never actually getting anywhere. Just aimless _flailing_."

"Hardly flailing," Wan says, running a hand through his bangs, which had swung to his face again. "More like… actually, no, flailing is about right," he laughs almost embarrassedly and shakes his head. "Still, not a half bad spar. My compliments, Master Kenobi."

"It was my pleasure, Master Kenobi," Obi grins back and looks at Anakin. "Time to head home, I think. It's about dinner time and we haven't even started."

Anakin looks between them, a little surprised by how… how _easy going_ they are now. Sure, they'd been getting better about the whole thing since the re-bonding thing, Wan had been easing up a lot since his _high_ episode, but this is different. They look happy, really honestly happy. It's more noticeable on Wan since he's never really happy about anything but right now they're both sort of… radiating with it.

It's nice, Anakin decides. He wouldn't mind it being like this always.

"Can we do this again?" he asks, while they gather their outer clothes, Wan shrugging his poncho back on with a pleased sigh and running a hand over it with obvious contentment.

"I'm sure we'll do this many times in the future," Obi says and ruffles his hair. "Now home – and _shower_. We all stink of sweat."

* * *

 

Obi-Wan's old friends all come by the quarters too, eventually. The word of Obi and Wan is spreading across the temple, slowly but steadily and though Anakin doesn't think anyone is actually told where they really come from… Obi-Wan's friends at least know that it's not _normal_. And so they come and see and sometimes Anakin is there to see it.

"It's just… so strange – I'm sorry, I don't mean any offence, but it's very strange," Bant says, while Obi serves her tea and Wan runs a hand through his hair, looking uneasy. "I was asked to watch over Anakin in the beginning while you were still being detained, but I didn't really know what was going on, only that Obi-Wan was gone, and now…"

"I'm sorry, we can't actually tell you anything," Wan says awkwardly. "We can't really explain this."

"No I understand, of course… I understand," she says, glancing up at Obi and then down again as Obi takes seat beside Wan, the two twins of her friend, Anakin's master, only strange. "Just – your background, is it the same as, uh, Obi-Wan's?"

"His history is ours, yes," Obi says with sad smile. "We know you, Bant Eerin, very well. You were our best friend too."

Bant smiles awkwardly and then looks down at her tea cup. "So, not a complete alternate reality then," she says and shakes her head. "No, never mind – I'm not trying to figure it out, sorry."

"It's alright," Obi says, nursing his own tea cup with a nostalgic look on his face. "It makes sense you would – and people will eventually figure out things for themselves. But for security reasons we can't actually _confirm_ anything one way or the other."

"The council is hoping that the Temple will eventually get used to us and we will simply be another pair of twin Jedi, no stranger from any other pair," Wan says and rolls his eyes. "Maybe in year or two it will even happen. Right now we're the nine days' wonder. You have nothing to be sorry about."

Bant nods and for a long while says nothing. Then she nods again and takes a sip of her tea. "I'm sorry," she then says, a little shaky. "I – don't think I can do this. I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Obi says quietly. "We understand."

"We don't blame you," Wan agrees.

Still, she looks terribly sad and guilty when she leaves, leaving Obi and Wan sharing the remains of the tea together while Anakin watches them through a crack in his bedroom doorway. Eventually he can't bear not knowing and slips into the living room.

"What can't she do?" he asks. "Why did Bant leave – why did she make it sound so final?"

"Because it was," Obi says and holds out an arm for him. Anakin hesitate a moment and then hurries to his side, snuggling under his arm. "She can't pick up the friendship she had with Knight Kenobi with us, that is what she meant. She looks at us and she doesn't see the childhood friend she grew up with – she sees strangers with familiar faces."

Anakin frowns a little, leaning his cheek on Obi's shoulder. Across from him, Wan is setting his teacup down slowly with a sigh. "I could do it," he comments. "Why can't she?"

"She's known Obi-Wan Kenobi far longer, and it's a friendship that has lasted for longer than you have lived," Wan says quietly. "Some things are irreplaceable."

Anakin frowns harder and looks at them. "But – you didn't," he says. "You didn't replace Obi-Wan. You're not him, not… not really."

Obi chuckles and eases his fingers through Anakin's short hair. "Sadly that's not a distinction easy to make," he says. "You can make it because you know us, you've seen our souls. We're bonded, so you know the difference. For the others what they see is what they get and what they see is a pair of strangers in place of their friend."

"It's fine," Wan says when Anakin keeps scowling. "It is, Anakin, really. It was expected. We will have other friends, and as it is, we have each other. And that's more than enough."

Anakin looks between them. Obi is smiling at him and Wan is leaning back, leaning his elbow onto the backrest of the couch. "We're just fine," the man says, and means it.

"Okay," Anakin says and leans his cheek on Obi's shoulder, enjoying the feel of his fingers in his hair. "That's okay, then."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware, smut

"There is no question that you have the knowledge and the skills," Master Windu says, as they take off their robes and lay them on the cushions at the side of the room. "It is obvious to anyone with eyes that your titles as Master are merited."

"Mmhm," Obi agrees, folding his outer robe and setting it down. "Timing is the issue then?"

"Timing and your general status," Windu says and turns to him. "Two men out of time are hard to fit into a duty roster. You've done your best sharing your information with us, and we're grateful for your efforts, but you still remain time travellers. It's… awkward. Never mind your bond."

Obi nods and says nothing for a moment while Windu goes to fetch the training sabers. It had been good two weeks now, good weeks of downtime in the Jedi temple and while he can't say he minds it, it's… more downtime than he's had since getting the Iruian stomach bug that put him out of commission for nearly four weeks straight. He's not used to it. Wan is even less so – the man lived on a constant battlefield after all – but Wan enjoys it more.

As much as Obi tries to exercise patience, he is getting a little antsy. It's lovely, being at peace, being at _home_ with Wan and Anakin, but at the same time he's about to crawl out of his skin with boredom.

"Here," Windu says and hands one of the sabers to him.

"Any chance of us getting our own sabers back?" Obi asks, accepting the thing and turning it in hand. Too light, he notices, too uniform. He misses the minor counterweight of the oversized emitter of his own blade.

"Once we know what to do with you," Windu says and then stretches his arms idly, watching him. "Tell me honestly, Master Kenobi – how far does your bond stretch now?"

Obi shrugs. "We haven't exactly tested it beyond the reaches of the Jedi Temple, but I don't think there will be trouble of us being apart," he admits. "The bond works by different set of parameters now – distance isn't one of them."

"So in theory we can send you to different missions if we need to?" Windu asks, watching him.

Obi hesitates. Yes, they can. He and Wan had even talked about it, how it would go if they were separated. They could work apart from each other, yes, it wouldn't be a problem. However… "You will get the best results from treating us as a team," Obi says slowly and looks away. "We can most likely work apart from each other, yes, but we'll work better together."

"Hm. Will you be a distraction for each other?"

"More so if don't know where the other is," Obi admits and looks at the Master of the Order. "We obviously can't ever be as independent as a solo knight, not with the bond in place, and yes, I know what you're concerned of. Will it give us priorities beyond our mission?"

Obi trails away while Windu watches him, steady. "Yes," he admits. "It will."

The Master of the Order nods slowly. "Good to know. Those priorities will have to be tested and examined at length, you understand," he says and Obi nods with a sigh. Windu nods and then moves to the middle of the training salle. "Now come – let's spar."

Obi moves to follow him, swinging the unlit saber hilt in hand.

There are more issues, he knows, than just the future knowledge or the bond, though those are the most major ones. There is also Knight Kenobi. Though the Council had considered changing their identity, having a new name assigned for them, they in the end had decided against it. Knight Kenobi hadn't had that notable a reputation yet, thankfully, and most of his more major missions had been with Qui-Gon Jinn, and it is usually the Master people remember, not the Padawan. Obi and Wan remained Kenobi, written down as twin Jedi on the Temple records, which in and of itself sets an awkward precedence. Twins generally are separated in the Jedi Order to prevent awkward bonds from forming.

And then there is Anakin. Already they are making strides with Anakin's education that Knight Kenobi hadn't been able to yet grasp and it's making the Council both relieved and _extremely_ worried. Anakin remains the strongest Force sensitive in recent memory and Obi and Wan are well on their way of bringing that concept into actual physical reality. Whether the boy is the Chosen one, no one dares to say – Wan certainly doesn't believe he is – but he is still strong. Strong and old for his training. It makes people worried.

And the Council doesn't even know about what became of Anakin in Wan's future.

Obi lights his training saber and takes a forward guard pose while Master Windu lights his and prepares for the duel. Obi eyes the posture the Master of the Order took and then waits – he won't give his advantage by committing to a feeble attack which will most likely not even work against the fast master of Vaapad.

Windu waits, gauges his posture – and then he attacks.

It's nothing like duelling Wan. With Wan it's like duelling a sideways mirror, or maybe a recording of himself. Wan matches all his moves with such precision that it goes from a duel to a dance in split of a second, a perfect harmonious waltz of lightsabers which while immensely enjoyable is far cry from an actual spar. Windu, though, Windu knows very little of him. Their moves don't match in the least.

A proper duel.

Obi blocks the attack and then the second – and the third, keeping his eyes on Windu's face, searching for tells of his movements. There are none, as usual, but Obi knows better than to let himself be distracted by the blade work – the winner and loser of a duel is determined in the mind, more often than not. The moment you give in and think, _I'm going to lose_ … you've already lost.

Windu himself had taught him that.

Their blades match in terrible screech and then part and they step back a little.

"You've dulled me before," Windu comments, watching his posture. "You've duelled me _often_ even. You know my style."

"In my time, we had a habit of it," Obi agrees and swings his saber to a better position. "You helped me perfect lot of my moves. Some of them I developed from our duels, actually," he admits and smiles briefly. "The Sith from Naboo used the seventh form and I had a… particular interest in learning how to beat it."

"Ah," Windu says in understanding, considering him thoughtfully.

And then he attacks again.

* * *

 

Obi is limping slightly as he enters the darkened quarters. The duel – the _several_ duels – with Windu had ended up stretching ridiculously long and it's nearly midnight now – Anakin and Wan have both gone to bed it seems. Just as well – he's so bruised and burnt from the duels that he really doesn't feel like socialising, not even with his family.

Right now all he wants is a cool shower and his bed. And that's what he aims to get too, heading straight for the fresher and stripping off his sweat soiled tunics the moment the door closes behind him, stumbling towards the shower head.

Well if nothing else, the beat he got took the edge off his more physical frustrations.

Obi turns the shower on and then winces at the heat of it – Wan must've showered before bed, he thinks, and hurriedly turns the temperature down. The man is a contradiction of enjoyable showers – he takes them _blistering hot_ like the best of hedonists, but he only spends six minutes in at the most. Military discipline and water rationing on board spaceships probably, Obi muses, and tilts his head back into the water as it takes on more bearable temperatures.

He takes his time with the shower, letting it soothe the sting of burns and ache of strained tendons until he feels a bit more relaxed. Once done, he takes a moment to smear some bacta cream on the worst of burns, not that they're bad enough to scar. Windu had definitely not taken it easy on him once he'd figured the extend of Obi's skills – and definitively not after Obi had scored enough points against him. If he didn't know better, Obi would say the man didn't like him.

Snorting quietly to himself, Obi puts the bacta cream back to the medicine cabinet before looking himself over in the mirror. Carding his hair back with his fingers, he tilts his face this way and that, but – he's too damn tired to actually do anything with his beard today. It hasn't been that long since he trimmed it anyway. It could wait few more days. His hair though…

Obi thinks of Wan's short hair and wonders if he should grow out his own. It's getting to the point where he'd normally trim it a bit to keep it to a reasonable length, but… the hair is one of the more obvious points of differentiation they have. If he let his grow out, grow long…

Obi frowns, trying to not for the first time imagine it. What he'd look like with Qui-Gon's haircut – or the very obvious _lack there off_ … It used to be a painful, awkward thought and usually was followed by him grabbing a pair of scissors, but now… now it doesn't seem so bad.

It might even look very well – especially beside Wan's bare minimum of care spent to his looks.

It's too damn late for this, he decides eventually and turns away, yawning. Shaking his fingers through his hair to loosen it up enough for the dampness to escape, he heads out of the fresher and to the dark bedroom where he collapses happily to the bed, looking forward to a full, dreamless night of rest after whole day of physical activity.

And then he realises Wan is on the bed.

"Mmm, Obi?" the man grumbles, wincing a little under the elbow Obi had accidentally banged against his waist.

"I thought today was my turn on the bed," Obi says but doesn't get up because after the cool shower the bed is _blissfully_ warm with Wan's body heat and he's too damn tired to get up. "Sorry. I'll get off." _In a moment,_ he thinks, and closes his eyes.

"No – it is your turn," Wan says, squirming a little under him and then pushing up. "Sorry, I thought – I didn't think you were coming home tonight."

Obi frowns a little at that, opening his eyes and peering up at the ceiling. He can't see it – there's no window in the bedroom and it's pitch black. "Why wouldn't I come home?" he then asks and turns to look at Wan's general direction. The man is a slightly darker blur in the shadows. "Where did you think I'd go?"

"Out," Wan says simply and yawns. "It's been a while, for you."

Obi blinks at him blearily and it takes a moment to – to catch up with that. "… for me," he repeats and then turns his eyes up at the ceiling again.

Yeah, it has been. Two weeks in Coruscant and he hasn't gone out once – that's part of the reason for his recent frustration. With Anakin and Wan, he can't even take care of the frustrations at home – and rubbing one off in the shower just isn't the same, is it? Still… Wan had thought he would just…

Well, he supposes it makes sense. It's not like _he_ would've truly minded if Wan had decided to head out one night to seek a moment of comfort and release but still… The way Wan had said it. It's been a while, for you. Like he doesn't, anymore.

"You don't, huh?" Obi asks, before Wan can get up fully.

"Hm?"

"You don't go out anymore?"

Wan hesitates in the darkness, a tension vibrating through him and echoing in the bed under them. Then he seems to make a decision and with a sigh he lays back down. "No," he admits. "Not since the war started."

For a moment Obi doesn't know what to say to that, or what think of it. "You haven't… had any sex in _three years_?" he then repeats, somewhat horrified.

They've really come pretty far with the whole relaxing in each other's presence thing, seeing that Wan actually can laugh at that. "You sound so _shocked_ ," he chuckles against the pillow. "I really was a slag, wasn't I?"

"Hey," Obi objects and shoves at his shoulder, only managing to make the elder man laugh more. "But seriously – not at all in three years?" he asks. No wonder Wan is so damn sad all the time.

"I didn't say _at all_ ," Wan says, yawning. "There was someone, we had a… mutual de-stress agreement, one could say. But I didn't exactly have the downtime to visit cantinas, what with an army to lead," he admits sleepily. "And as it is, it's not exactly the sort of behaviour one expects of an esteemed General of a Grand Army, you know."

Obi considers that and – yeah, he can see Wan abstaining just for appearances’ sake alone. Despite how little effort he puts into his appearances in general – and now that too makes a little more sense – the man is all about showing a _proper front_. The short hair, the lack of grooming, all of it. Wan is all about being the proper.

And nowadays, Obi can actually even imagine how it would've gone about. He knows enough of Wan's background and the war to understand the pressure he would've been under. Pressure of very different appearances would make sense.

"Someone," Obi then repeats and turns to lie on his side, facing the other man. "Special someone?"

"A friend," Wan says, his tone soft with fast approaching sleep.

"Another Jedi?"

"No. A clone trooper – captain, actually," Wan says. He must sense Obi's raised eyebrows because he quickly clarifies, "He was under different regiment, he wasn't directly part of my chain of command. So it wasn't technically fraternisation."

Not exactly a concern Obi had had, but alright. "Well it's good that the technicalities were covered," Obi says, rather amused. "A clone captain, huh?" he murmurs, leaning his cheek on his palm and thinking back to the few glimpses he'd gotten from Wan from the clones. They were, one and all, pretty handsome. "Wouldn't that make it a bit… awkward, dealing with the other clones? They all look the same, after all, so…"

"Hmmm," Wan answers, half asleep. "Not really. They weren't the same, not really. Same faces, but different men on the inside. And Rex was… he was in league of his own…"

"Rex," Obi repeats, but Wan's already back to sleep, the only sound coming from him his quiet, nearly silent breathing. "Well, I'm glad you weren't completely alone, at least," Obi murmurs, reaching in the darkness to tug at the covers, to cover Wan's bare shoulder.

He should get up and go to the couch.

Instead he lays his head down on the crook of his arm and sighs. Sometimes Wan makes him so damn sad, he thinks, and tucks his hand to his chest. Three years with only the occasional tryst with just the one man, and judging by the sound of it, never out in the open. He doesn't think Wan had feelings for this _Rex_ , he would've felt them if he had, and mutual de-stress agreement doesn't sound very emotional, but still…

Sometimes he's just so kriffin _sorry_ for Wan that he can't even think around it.

* * *

 

"Are you kidding me?"

Obi hums quietly, snuggling into the warm skin his cheek is pressed again. He's nice and loose and warm and just a tad hard but it's not urgent and he's just… way too comfortable to get up. "It's too early," he murmurs sleepily even as he idly rolls his hips against the thigh between his legs. "Go back to sleep."

"Obi," a voice in his ear, a warning growl, and Obi winces, burying his face deeper in Wan's chest.

 _Shavit_.

"Morning Wan," Obi offers faintly, but doesn't lift his head, taking moment to figure out the situation. They're on bed, Wan is lying on his back, Obi is lying half on top of him, one leg thrown between Wan's legs, all but rutting against the man's thigh – nice. Wan is about as tense as statue under him and while Obi's hand is curled around his waist, Wan's hands are thrown up, as if he'd burned them and had to get them off him.

Obi gets a Force echo of being held – Wan's hand had been in his hair, one around his shoulders, he can still feel the warmth – and for a moment he feels a bit sad for not having woken up sooner. Wan had been cuddling him and he'd missed it.

"Get off me," Wan says tightly, his whole body coiled up tight like he's about to launch into attack. Or more likely, into flight.

The funny thing is, despite that, Obi is still so comfortable. He and Wan don't have personal barriers with each other, he'd noticed – their bond threw all that out of the window long ago they aren't space conscious with each other. More and than once, they'd end up more or less walking all over each other's personal boundaries without second thought because… well, why would they worry about it?

Wan is tense and mortified under him – and Obi is still half hard against his thigh and despite the alarm Wan is all but vibrating with, Obi can't quite muster up even a hint of shame or humiliation at their position. Which begs the question, how can Wan?

Obi lifts his head, frowning a little. Wan isn't looking at him – he's staring up at the ceiling, glaring at it. "Hey," Obi says and Wan's eyes glance down at him with the speed of someone not actually wishing to make eye contact. He looks _humiliated_. And he's flushed bright red.

Obi blinks and looks down. "Ah," he says, eloquent.

"Shut up," Wan says tightly and closes his eyes. "And get off."

"Hm," Obi answers, eying the man's obviously wet underwear and then looks up at his face again. Well that explains the humiliation, though really - how rude, to tell him to get off when he’s already gotten his own completion? Though on other hand, getting off…  "I would _love_ to," he then hums and grinds against Wan's thigh.

Wan inhales sharply and his eyes snap down to Obi in near panic. His hands – which he's holding up by the pillow and away from Obi's skin like he's afraid of touching, twitch and – and stay where they are and that is both disappointing and weirdly thrilling. Wan looks lovely lying there, in a posture of surrender, but at the same time…

"Hey," Obi says quietly and moves up little and – and that's nice, he's grinding up against Wan's thigh again, but… but Wan looks _nervous_. "Hey, what's wrong – "

"Your dick grinding against my leg, that's what's wrong – now get off me," Wan growls at him, but he's still not moving his hands, isn't actually pushing him away, he isn't even trying to squirm away. There's something wrong – something beyond of him not wanting this.

Obi leans his head onto his palm and looks down at him. "I don't actually think you want me to get off," he comments wryly, glancing at his hand. "What's wrong, Wan?"

Wan inhales and looks away, emotions racing across his face. Apprehension and fear and humiliation and _longing_. Obi watches them shift, watches how Wan closes his eyes and swallows, watches him try and come up with arguments and objections. It’s so bad it’s leaking into the bond - the need to stop this and at the same time the desire do no such thing.

Obi considers counter arguments. They can't do this – they're married. They're the same person – yes, they are, which really only makes it a mutual form of masturbation, doesn't it? They're technically related – yes, by being the _same person_. It's immoral, it's wrong, it's -

Wan opens his mouth and draws a breath – and in that moment Obi leans in and kisses him. He does it without thinking, that's probably the only reason Wan doesn't see it coming the same way Obi saw the objections, and because of that Wan doesn't seem to have much of a defence against it. He just goes still, inhaling sharply in surprise and – and not moving.

Obi puts a hand on his cheek, marvelling the feel of his beard, so much thicker and rougher than his own. Then he tilts Wan's head just so, and presses in and – it's perfect. And of course it would be.

Wan's lips fit his just right. The feel of his facial hair, the smell of his breath, the exact temperature of his skin, the texture of his lips, all of it is natural and _perfect_ in a way Obi can't quite put into words. Like their life bond, like their _lives_ , they fit here too, forming a glorious, easy symmetry.

Obi hums in pleasure, brushing his nose against Wan's and tugs at the man's lower lip with his own, trying to coax him to open up – and of course he does, drawing another shuddering breath and just _yielding_ under him, moving into it with a soft, shaky reverence.

It's already the best kiss of Obi's life and it's barely a kiss at all. Wan's hands finally move, to grasp him by the sides of his jaw, fingers brushing into his beard and for a moment Obi thinks Wan will push him away but he doesn't. They move into _just_ the right angle and lose themselves into the surprising but entirely expected rightness of each other, as they match each shift and brush and breath perfectly.

Obi inhales slowly, little light-headed by the time they separate and Wan stares up at him, looking utterly stunned.

Then Wan pulls him back down urgently and they're kissing again and again it is _perfect_. Obi hums into it and Wan answers with a soft sigh, his hands wandering down from Obi's neck to his shoulders, going up and down his skin first carefully and then urgently, and Obi is moving on him, thrusting his body against him – and it's _magnificent_.

They kiss and kiss and kiss, each melting into each other and somehow growing only better the further they go on. Wan knows how to hold him just right, knows where to touch him, how to make him shudder and he does it almost accidentally and it's extremely distracting but not enough do to keep Obi from moving into another kiss and then another and another.

When the orgasm washes over him, it seems almost like an afterthought. He shudders with it and Wan soothes him with greedy hands brushing over his waist and back and gripping at his backside and Obi is starting to get it now – he can almost see it, the moments of passion Wan in past during the war, all so quick and rushed and only minimally tender. His nights with Rex had always been deeply, viscerally _satisfying_ but hardly gentle and rarely kind. Neither of them had been able to afford emotions.

And so no one's touched Wan kindly in a long time, and when Obi runs his hand down his chest, scraping gently at the chest hair and then grasping him gently by the waist to hold him close, that alone is enough to break Wan a little. Wan isn't hard, isn't even about to get hard, but he's still shuddering like he's coming apart.

" _Obi_ ," the man whines against his lips and Obi licks them, humming in pleasure.

"Don't you _dare_ get all awkward now," Obi murmurs to him warningly. He's half on top of the man now, all but pinning him into the bed, and it's _nice_. "This was entirely too lovely for that."

Wan sighs against his lips and it's a little bit troubled – but at the same time he's clutching onto Obi's waist, one hand tenderly brushing up his skin. "It's a little awkward," he murmurs in faint embarrassment, and looks at him. He's flushed with pleasure and he looks so _relaxed_ and he's still trying to complain. "You – we are – "

"Married," Obi says, pushing over him and grinning. "Having marital sex. It's all par the course, you'll find."

"That's not what – " Wan starts to object and then hums in helpless enjoyment as Obi silences him with another deep, _glorious_ kiss. "Sithin' hell with you," he murmurs against Obi's lips, a feeble complaint at best, and then hauls Obi closer for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> "... they will then compose a separate system, and remain united by the bond of their own mutual gravitation towards each other..."


End file.
